NYT reviews weight gain/loss research

[firecat]

The New York Times excerpts Gina Kolata’s new book, Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss — and the Myths and Realities of Dieting reviews early human experiments on weight loss and gain. (free registration required)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/health/08fat.html

A 1959 experiment on very low calorie dieting found that "fat people who lost large amounts of weight might look like someone who was never fat, but they were very different. In fact, by every metabolic measurement, they seemed like people who were starving....The Rockefeller subjects also had a psychiatric syndrome, called semi-starvation neurosis, which had been noticed before in people of normal weight who had been starved. They dreamed of food, they fantasized about food or about breaking their diet. They were anxious and depressed; some had thoughts of suicide. They secreted food in their rooms. And they binged."

and

Dr. Ethan Sims at the University of Vermont...asked what would happen if thin people who had never had a weight problem deliberately got fat.

His subjects were prisoners at a nearby state prison who volunteered to gain weight. With great difficulty, they succeeded, increasing their weight by 20 percent to 25 percent. But it took them four to six months, eating as much as they could every day. Some consumed 10,000 calories a day, an amount so incredible that it would be hard to believe, were it not for the fact that there were attendants present at each meal who dutifully recorded everything the men ate.

Once the men were fat, their metabolisms increased by 50 percent. They needed more than 2,700 calories per square meter of their body surface to stay fat but needed just 1,800 calories per square meter to maintain their normal weight.

When the study ended, the prisoners had no trouble losing weight. Within months, they were back to normal and effortlessly stayed there.

Comments

[bastette-joyce.livejournal.com]

As for Americans being fatter than other people, I know I've heard that parroted various places, but is it really true? I've never seen it accompanied by convincing data.

Good point. I'm thinking of comments I've heard from Europeans and Asians over the years. Of course, that's only anecdotal "evidence", and I can't offer anything more substantial than that.

I guess a good question to ask is, who is saying this? And what agenda do they have? I'm not convinced that everyone who says it is just parroting - many people might actually experience Americans as being fatter than people from other countries. That doesn't make it a fact, but if that perception is actually out there, then where is it coming from?

I tend toward "a combination of nature and nurture" as the most reasonable explanation for many phenomena, and the human body is certainly complex enough that there is room for more than one influence.

[jenk]

The other question about "Americans are fatter than anyone else" is, is it true that Americans also tend to be taller than anyone else?

We know that good nutrition, immunizations, and so on result in taller humans. Why not heavier ones?