Friday 2 March 2012

Freaky...isn't

There's an intensity of desire to be "victimized" by fat acceptance-fat people in general for a similar reason. It's like FA's a wall and folks keep taking a long run at it hurling themselves hard, bouncing off and saying

"That wall hurt meeeeee!"

Still, certain things seem to irk FA detractors.  One is calling those who've managed to acquire anorexia, or long term dieters, "freaks of nature". Yep, this (still) has boo boo traction.

I wouldn't describe those who sustain a diet long term as "freaks of nature". It's not rude, just off kilter. It makes me think of those at the extreme ends of the weight scale.

I'm sure many of us assume they have some clear genetic predisposition to be at the top of the scale but it doesn't appear to be so simple.

Looking from the perspective we've been trained in, getting overexcited about people who's BMI is greater than 25, you'd expect those double that or more to have a more distinct sign, pattern or marker of difference.

Although some interesting possibilities and differing susceptibilities definitely lend themselves to weight gain, for various reasons. There isn't consistent uniformity over and above a propensity to gain (in some cases lose) weight. A spread of traits and/or genes of certain types more likely to congregate at certain points-like for instance the deletion mentioned or at the other point duplication, though they don't seem wholly deterministic in themselves.

The most unusual thing about weight outliers-of all types, including those of least weight, is that they are where they are.

Whether they're "reduced obese" or at the lower/ higher end, the most remarkably distinct thing about them, is that they are and they actually aren't "freaky" enough to signal why they as opposed to others who may (or may not) share their traits aren't.

That's an underlying truth of many conditions. So many more people fit the criteria for the activated state, but it's somehow dormant or inactive. The the trigger or spark or lack of it, is the real mystery.

Inside and outside genes (those who have genetic susceptibility to be lower/higher weights and those who do not), probability plays out. Low rate of chance means a relative rarity, has occurred. Yet probability doesn't have intent and the multifaceted complex and reactively nuanced nature of human metabolism is the closest thing to that beyond the interplay of environment and DNA.

4 comments:

  1. So why is metabolism ignored?

    Obviously for many fat people our bodies WORK DIFFERENTLY

    Do you agree or disagree?

    ReplyDelete
  2. You've asked two tricky questions neither of which I can claim to answer definitively.

    I'll just stick with right now. On the second question, I suppose it depends what you mean specifically by "working differently".

    Different from what? Their own pheno/ physical type or other weight categories?

    Fat people's bodies work more differently from each other than they do from different weights, especially of their own body type.

    A study in the post, which mentioned deletion of genes in some 40+ BMI's was found in ab. 7 in 1000 of (40 upwards). I daresay there are plenty other things to be found.

    The most uniform convergence is weght.

    The implication of 'obesity' that fat bodies work in a uniform "fat way" is wishful thinking as is being shown by the continuous inability to substantiate that conviction.

    The question is, what's provoking into action what has more previously remained dormant; across populations-in less recent history?

    And what is making that more active in some and so active in others?

    We can see the same possibility has always been there but was just bypassed or overridden for various reasons.

    The explanations thus far are mostly unconvincing, skewered as they are by bias of a magnitude that is undermining our capacity to understand.

    The best one is that we are evolving to be fat/ter given the way we've made progress as a species and that if some of us want to be able to change that, we actually have to master the biology of weight, rather than trying to wing it from a place of deep denial.

    Or we can accept whatever weight anyone is. Reality will force the issue sooner or later.

    Not that I necessarily think the 'genetics' of weight matters much either way. If you find a lever to manipulate that then it should function on any one's body, taking it up or down in weight.

    i.e. if you found a way to increase the function of the lungs, the 'genetics' of everything from asthma, having a rotund abdominal cavity, to having a pidgeon chest would not be much of an issue.

    Which brings us to why metabolism is ignored; in some ways as big a mystery. I don't know if its so much ignored as feared. In weight matters we've continually tried to get away with the easy and simplistic. Or other impulses, often base have been more important. Despite appearances, the people who make the most noise about 'obesity' are actually the least interested in it, whatever they imagine.

    In the end, metabolism is one of the hardest things to define properly. It's fiendishly intangible and multifarious.

    Its not like our system of blood vessels, or interrelated systems like heart and lungs, that can be seen functioning distinctly, somewhat with the naked eye.

    It is so multisystem, multifarious, quicksilver and reactive it might be hard to pin down in the current fashion of science which is a very specific micro manner. Which makes scientists feel well sciency, I'm presuming.

    Rather than in the way that best cuts to the chase, i.e. see how Leonardo Da Vinci found out about how creatures function.

    I also think it's easier to think of human beings as metabolic creatures, rather than as "having a metabolism".


    Either way, I suspect it requires people at the top of their intellectual game with a voracious curiosity and commitment to that with an almost amoral indifference to (so called) popular opinion to try and sort out.

    Whereas in terms of weight/fatness at least, it seems to attract people who whatever their actual talents, are the polar opposite of all those.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Either way, I suspect it requires people at the top of their intellectual game with a voracious curiosity and commitment to that with an almost amoral indifference to (so called) popular opinion to try and sort out."

    Gary Taubes comes to mind. Also, Chris Kresser. And there are others out there but their research is largely ingnored since it does go against popular opinion. But there ARE people out there doing the research and helping thousands recover from diabetes, obesity, heart disease, hypothyroidism...modern diseases.
    And, yes, it is something in our modern environment switching on genes that have always been there, dormant. genetic predisposition + modern "toxic" environment
    = modern diseases and obesity. This is especially true when people are nutrient deficient over many generations due to poor diet in their family history. It's a complex subject but there are answers out there.

    ReplyDelete