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How exacty is obesity genetic when mass obesity is a recent phenomenon? Your bias shows when logic is absent.

strken 9y ago
Genetics and environment don't exist in isolation. As a totally made up example, maybe some people are more vulnerable to specific toxins (genetics) that are a by-product of plastic manufacturing (environment), and this causes increased appetite.
jjeaff 9y ago
Simple. Some humans likely were always predisposed to obesity. But as a species, we have never had enough easy calories to get obese. It doesn't matter if you have a genetic predisposition to alcoholism if you have never even had a chance to taste alcohol.
- dilyevsky 9y ago
  Is Americans' genetic makeup so different from the rest of the developed world? How bout West Virginians vs New Yorkers? I mean ffs WV has 38% obesity rate vs ~25 NY and they are less than 10hr drive from each one another, genetic my ass!
  - jjeaff 9y ago
    Help me understand your logic. You are saying that because two locations have two different rates of obesity, that means genetics plays no role in obesity? Even if someone has the hypothetical sweet tooth gene, they are still going to be more likely to be obese in the poorer location that has less access to healthy food and less reason/necessity/possibility to walk everywhere.
    - awalton 9y ago
      > You are saying that because two locations have two different rates of obesity, that means genetics plays no role in obesity? This really, really needs some explaining from GP. All evidence in the history of genetics tells us that if you put a population in relative isolation (say, West Virginia or one of the other deep south micro-societies which are predominantly economically insulated from one another with very little social mobility), adaptations and recessive traits become more prominent and pronounced and eventually speciation occurs. Let me run this one by you: Put a bunch of poor people from Ireland and England (which were already isolated populations subsisting on a lean largely starch-based diet, which pushes selection pressures towards genetic adaptations that preserve starch-based energy) into a society-based island that is Appalachia, start applying very cheap garbage food made largely of factory starches and sugars by the train-car load since the late 1940's when the processed and packaged food industries needed an excuse to keep going after WWII, and social pressures like the reduction in need for dirty coal, mineral mining and manufacturing such that all that most of these people can afford to eat is the cheap processed stuff, and you wonder why previously rare diseases like obesity are so common among these people? You wonder why over time these adaptations may have had a chance to take hold as some of these individuals are able to diaspora or escape abject poverty and pass on their obsolete adaptations as we move forward into a post-food-scarcity society? HackerNews is so filled with people who lack even the most basic sense of human empathy - I wish I could say I'm so surprised, but it's almost looked upon as a badge of honor by some of these people...

Genetics and environment don't exist in isolation. As a totally made up example, maybe some people are more vulnerable to specific toxins (genetics) that are a by-product of plastic manufacturing (environment), and this causes increased appetite.

jjeaff 9y ago

Simple. Some humans likely were always predisposed to obesity. But as a species, we have never had enough easy calories to get obese. It doesn't matter if you have a genetic predisposition to alcoholism if you have never even had a chance to taste alcohol.

dilyevsky 9y ago
Is Americans' genetic makeup so different from the rest of the developed world? How bout West Virginians vs New Yorkers? I mean ffs WV has 38% obesity rate vs ~25 NY and they are less than 10hr drive from each one another, genetic my ass!
- jjeaff 9y ago
  Help me understand your logic. You are saying that because two locations have two different rates of obesity, that means genetics plays no role in obesity? Even if someone has the hypothetical sweet tooth gene, they are still going to be more likely to be obese in the poorer location that has less access to healthy food and less reason/necessity/possibility to walk everywhere.
  - awalton 9y ago
    > You are saying that because two locations have two different rates of obesity, that means genetics plays no role in obesity? This really, really needs some explaining from GP. All evidence in the history of genetics tells us that if you put a population in relative isolation (say, West Virginia or one of the other deep south micro-societies which are predominantly economically insulated from one another with very little social mobility), adaptations and recessive traits become more prominent and pronounced and eventually speciation occurs. Let me run this one by you: Put a bunch of poor people from Ireland and England (which were already isolated populations subsisting on a lean largely starch-based diet, which pushes selection pressures towards genetic adaptations that preserve starch-based energy) into a society-based island that is Appalachia, start applying very cheap garbage food made largely of factory starches and sugars by the train-car load since the late 1940's when the processed and packaged food industries needed an excuse to keep going after WWII, and social pressures like the reduction in need for dirty coal, mineral mining and manufacturing such that all that most of these people can afford to eat is the cheap processed stuff, and you wonder why previously rare diseases like obesity are so common among these people? You wonder why over time these adaptations may have had a chance to take hold as some of these individuals are able to diaspora or escape abject poverty and pass on their obsolete adaptations as we move forward into a post-food-scarcity society? HackerNews is so filled with people who lack even the most basic sense of human empathy - I wish I could say I'm so surprised, but it's almost looked upon as a badge of honor by some of these people...