Fat cells of obese men produce estrogen, a hormone that decreases sex drive. Making a man's obesity the ultimate cock blocker. Numerous heated debates in the scientific community, sort of like whose better Coby or Lebron, have taken place to establish the cause of this disease. Many geneticists, including Elena G. Bochukova, Ni Huang, Julia Keogh and 9 other co authors of the Nature Article Large, rare chromosomal deletions associated with sever early onset obesity, believe inheritance determines obesity. However many people, including myself, argue that while chromosomes in the body play a role in how we store and digest food they do not solely decide our weight. Other factors such as environment, a person’s calorie intake scale and exercise level directly determine a person’s BMI or body mass index (mine is stellar in case you were wondering).
I would first like to state that chromosomes do play a role in our digestive functions and can influence our body’s ability to metabolize food. The Nature article explains a laboratory test preformed done on rats. The test relates chromosome 16p11.2 to BMI when nothing is done to prevent it or retard this natural progress.Another test prerformed on 300 obese white males showed deletions significantly developed or became present when compared to the controls (skinny people). While the test's outcome did favor the scientists I don’t believe the group being tested encompassed a large enough subject diversity. Therefore the test skewed the date and the public’s perception; because the test only used white males and no other race or ethnicity. The article also mentioned that patients with this rare chromosomal deletion showed signs of mental retardation or autism. This additional factor I believe limits a child’s ability to sustain a healthy physical lifestyle and again proves that an adolescent’s environment is the key to maintaining a normal BMI reading.
Your environment and how you grow up affects your lifestyle, including weight. The Nature article argues early onset obesity, or younger children who are very overweight for their age and body size. I believe the reason for this is the habits you pick up as a young child, which become building blocks for your whole life. For example if your parents are vegetarians and teach you how to eat a balanced meal you are more likely to eat healthy because this is what you regard as normal. Or take for another example, me. My father was a collegiate athlete so at a young age he taught me an active lifestyle. Iate meat to keep protein readily available in my body, so that I could build the big beautiful muscles I have today. Socioeconomics also play a major role in a child’s weight developments. If a child has available to them parks and nice outdoor recreation centers they are more likely to forfill their recommended physical activity for the day. If a child however lives in an underdeveloped and unsafe neighborhood he or she is more likely to stay inside, forming a sedentary lifestyle. Purchasing food also becomes an issue; most of the cheaper food available is unhealthy and high in calories, for example McDonalds. If this is all that is available to a lower class family nothing can be done to get their eating habits in check; being healthy is not as important as keeping their children from starvation.
Calorie intake also directly affects a person’s weight. The measure for proper ingestion relies on a person's caloric balance. This imaginary equation for a healthy weight is to expend more calories than you ingest; adopted from the U.S. Surgeon General's Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity, 2001. In other words when it comes to maintaining a fit lifestyle, calories count. Officially a calorie is a unit of energy supplied by food. Contrary to popular belief a calorie counts the same regardless of where it came from. Whether it be carbohydrates, fats, sugars, or proteins a calorie is still a calorie. It is recommended that a person have 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day and keep meals in portioned sizes to prevent over eating. While the article mentions studies previously done linking genetics to your rate of metabolism, or how quickly you burn off food, genes do not affect how much you stuff in your face or your motivation to get up off your lazy ass and go workout, which leads me to my next favorite point-exercise.
Exercise is the last major factor in determining a person weight or BMI. As you work out you body goes through aerobic respiration and makes energy for you cells, in doing this it burns off calories. This is why exercising leads to weight loss, and why lame shows like The Biggest Loser have so many viewers, because it really works- shocker. However if you choose not to work out your body will take those calories you eat and store them as fat. Once this fat builds up it is increasing hard to get rid of, thankfully I wouldn’t know.
When comparing the US with the rest of the world, statistically over 2/3rds of all Americans are by some standards over weight, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources. When compared to other countries in the world this is a very alarming number. Many countries such as Korea blame the US for their recent increase in overweight individuals because of Americans cheap food exports and developments in technology. Since the internet developed people spend up to 4 more hours a day in a sedentary position. Jobs have become less strenuous and focus less on manual labor and more on technology and machines. Recreational activities have also taken a turn towards video games, facebook, chat roulette and web surfing rather than playing catch on the front lawn. This shift in lifestyle has only occurred in the last decade, while genes have been around since humans were in existence. So I ask why are we getting fat all of a sudden? …the answer could include genetics but it is by far not the main reason you can’t fit into that skirt, it’s our environment, our caloric intake and our level or exercise, all which have been changing rapidly in the past years.
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