Fat Kids: Destined to be fat for life

cormie

I was watching the documentary; "Why are thin people not fat" and later on in it they mention that people who are overweight as children, will be overweight for life due to fat cells being created which retain fat longer and will make it very easy to put on weight and very hard to lose weight.

As a child I was quite overweight, my weight has been fluctuating greatly since then, based on whatever condition I may be in at a specific time. My max was about 16st at 15 years old, then I went down to about 12.5st when I was around 19, then back up to 15 stone, down to 13, back up a bit etc over the past few years. I believe I'm much more knowledgeable in diet etc now and when I was in full health around July last year, I was about 79kg. I had lost about 14kg in the space of a year due to better diet and a LOT more exercise. I injured my neck in August and have been unable to play consistently and have put on about 6/7kg since then.

The thing is, I have a huuuuge appetite and really have to practice self control when it comes to sweet things, or things I know aren't good and if I'm out of action due to an injury, it's very easy for me to put on weight. Unlike the slim people in that documentary who mostly don't seem to do exercise, but can't put on weight easily either.

So is that it? Is it in my genes and I'll be struggling to keep the weight down for the remainder of my life? Any chance of it being reversed I wonder?

dartstothesea

The reason why someone will always be a certain way is usually the same reason they got that way in the first place. I don't think the state of being fat is the reason fat people will always be fat, I think the original tendency or condition that led them to become fat is probably the reason they would stay that way.

It depends how you define fat, too. A healthy BMI is within the reach of almost all humans (i.e. even almost all the fat ones). "Looking good" however may not be. I understand the fat cells being there might mean they look "not lean" but they could still have X amount of lean body mass and Y amount of total bodyweight and they could have an outstanding ratio of X to Y, as far as I know anyway.

I guess what I'm getting at could be the difference between BF% vs Caliper measurements for example. I'd guess people could still have ****ty measurements in crucial places at a low BF% like.

Even if this claim in your post was true, just accepting lifelong fatness just can't be a viable option.

top madra

cormie wrote: »

The thing is, I have a huuuuge appetite and really have to practice self control when it comes to sweet things, or things I know aren't good and if I'm out of action due to an injury, it's very easy for me to put on weight. Unlike the slim people in that documentary who mostly don't seem to do exercise, but can't put on weight easily either.

So is that it? Is it in my genes and I'll be struggling to keep the weight down for the remainder of my life? Any chance of it being reversed I wonder?

"The thing is, I have a huuuuge appetite and really have to practice self control when it comes to sweet things, or things I know aren't good"

You struggle with your weight because of this^^^
It's up to you to change it..

cormie

See it's quite hard to change the appetite and liking of nice things, if you watch the little test in that documentary with the playschool kids, it seems to be something you're either born with or not, that you won't stop when you're not hungry

I don't want it to be true what they said in the documentary, I'd like to think that all my exercise and good choice of diet will pay off, it definitely does when I do it, but any type of injury etc has the risk to pile some weight back on, quite quickly. I've made some major changes to my diet in recent years and have seen some great improvement, not just in weight, but overall health, but to be told there's genetic cells inside me that will always do their best to keep me fat is annoying to hear. I thought it was just a case of willpower, diet and exercise, which I had been coping well with, but to know there's an irreversible challenge of dealing with fat cells that will make it so much harder is a pain in the ass.

xgtdec

I really do believe this comes down to choice, i was never a fat child(no bad habits), i was a morbidly obese teen and 20 something(bad habits) and im slowly clawing my way back to where ma gut dont shake:)

but heres the kicker......1 square of a yorkie bar, 1 single solitary square and im off on a rampage of biblical proportions, that single square can end up being 3 litres of ben and jerrys:mad:

So the choice for me is between having all and being fat, or having nothing and looking they way i want, i dont have an inbetween, there is no middle ground for me, i can do 2 months clean diet with no issues at all, so much as show me a cheat meal and im off the rails for days.

So i dont think that a fat kid is destined to be fat for life, but i think a fat kid is detined to have a tougher time making tougher choices for life!!

Inspector Coptoor

xgtdec wrote: »

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So the choice for me is between having all and being fat, or having nothing and looking they way i want, i dont have an inbetween, there is no middle ground for me, i can do 2 months clean diet with no issues at all, so much as show me a cheat meal and im off the rails for days.

Full Duck or No Dinner!
I'd be quite similar, maybe not to that extreme but if I have one Dorito, I keep at them til the bag is gone, and the same with the ben & jerry's!

I could be pulling this from the air now but I kinda remember hearing once that as you put on weight as fat (adipose) you end up with more fat cells (lipocytes) and these lipocytes fill up with fat and that where you store the fat.

BUT, as you lose weight, you dont lose the adipocytes, they simply shirnk in size, they will always be there, making it much easier for someone who has lost a shed load of weight to put it back on again, AND, couple that with the tendency of people to "go off the rails" every now and again, and its no wonder the yo-yo dieting thing happens so much.

Hanley

Liam Henners257 wrote: »

Full Duck or No Dinner!
I'd be quite similar, maybe not to that extreme but if I have one Dorito, I keep at them til the bag is gone, and the same with the ben & jerry's!

I could be pulling this from the air now but I kinda remember hearing once that as you put on weight as fat (adipose) you end up with more fat cells (lipocytes) and these lipocytes fill up with fat and that where you store the fat.

BUT, as you lose weight, you dont lose the adipocytes, they simply shirnk in size, they will always be there, making it much easier for someone who has lost a shed load of weight to put it back on again, AND, couple that with the tendency of people to "go off the rails" every now and again, and its no wonder the yo-yo dieting thing happens so much.

That sounds about right.

Plus add onto the fact that when people go off the rails they tend to do it on high carbs foods that have low satiety factors, and the hormonal/metabolic issues probably at play too, AND some people just have higher natural non-exercise activity levels (ie fidgeting etc), you can quickly see why some people stay lean while others get fat.

But that’s not to say once you’re fat you’ll be fat forever. You just need to make smarter choices and work a little bit harder.

I’m also a big believer in “set” bodyweight levels. Like once you get to a specific range and maintain it there for a sustained period, it can become difficult to move it up or down, which is kinda good once you can establish and maintain leanness.

Barry.Oglesby

First of all this is true. Certain people are predisposed to store fat more than others. Also, as kids, we're in a constant state of craving for energy dense foods. Man, the animal, basically wants everything to eat just in case the ice age kicks in. It's an evolutionary imperative that we can't voluntarily switch off.

However just because it is so, doesn't mean anything necessarily. Some people are dyslexic and have trouble reading and writing, but they don't decide never to do either again. They adapt and overcome, and just have to work a bit harder. Not to stretch the analogy, but there are dyslexic people at the top of the literary and business world who never knew they were dyslexic until they were far beyond school age. Likewise, I think you'll find people at the top of the athletic spectrum who have the same genetic disposition for fat storage. By the same token, there are grossly overfat people who have no genetic predisposition to fat gain, and I would hazard that most people fall into this category.

Essentially, the genetic evidence is interesting, but it really doesn't change anything except to introduce another possible excuse. People are obese and overfat because they eat too much and exercise too little. If they have some genetic foible that causes them to store fat more efficiently, then they need to work a little harder.

Red Cortina

There is more to it that just yo-yo dieting and people not having any self control....

The US has a special register of people who manage to lose 20% of their body weight and then keep it off for 5 years or more (http://www.nwcr.ws/). And that's because it is really really hard to maintain weight loss. Your eat less, move more modius operandi will work for the initial weight loss but to maintain a weight loss is a whole different story.

Inspector Coptoor

Hanley wrote: »

I’m also a big believer in “set” bodyweight levels. Like once you get to a specific range and maintain it there for a sustained period, it can become difficult to move it up or down, which is kinda good once you can establish and maintain leanness.

Yeah, I'm with you on this one.
It's taken me a couple of years to undo a stupid 6 month experiment of weight gain but definitely staying in a certain weight category for a while and then moving down, and then repeating this process seems to work

Barry.Oglesby wrote: »

Essentially, the genetic evidence is interesting, but it really doesn't change anything except to introduce another possible excuse. People are obese and overfat because they eat too much and exercise too little. If they have some genetic foible that causes them to store fat more efficiently, then they need to work a little harder.

This

Red Cortina wrote: »

There is more to it that just yo-yo dieting and people not having any self control....

No one said lack of self control full stop.
Just bouts of lack of self control.
Falling off the wagon momentarily, that kind of thing.

What more is there to it in your opinion?

xgtdec

Liam Henners257 wrote: »

Full Duck or No Dinner!

exactly, however for me it all boils down to one simple thing that is the root cause of all my problems

My name is xgtdec...and im.....a sugar addict:)

and i know im an addict, and thats why it has to be all or nothing, i dont know any part time heroin users and i dont know any part time alcoholics, an addict is an addict, be it needing a steady flow of heroin\alcohol\gambling\sugar......or be it having the ability to stay clean for months but then a binge is a binge, and once you have one binge its nigh on impossible to get off the roundabout, i started last thursday evening and i finished yesterday....i wont go through what i ate:o, lucky for me the routine of work kicks in on Mondays and i know i can stay clean for the week, and the weekend will be a struggle.
I have a notepad beside my bed with the days left in january on them, i intend to be clean for the rest of January which means not a drop of produced food passes my lips......but like any addiction it can be beaten, you really have to want it enough. its just unfortunate that sugar addtion isnt up there with other socially high prifile addtiction, i aint going to be robbing grannies for yorkie bars...well not yet anyway:p

Hanley

I was listening to Dr. William Davies (heart surgeon, wheat belly author and track your plaque dude) on a podcast the other day going on about how gliadin acts on the opiate receptors in the brain and thus has an addictive quality much the same as heroin etc. Didn’t get to hear where this evidence was coming from but does raise an interesting question as to the addictiveness of certain foods and may go some way to explaining the craving since gluten seems to be in pretty much everything these days…?

Plates

Willpower, Exercise, Moderation - it's hardly rocket science is it? My concern is that obesity has almost become normalised these days - so there's a lot less shame in being very overweight. Safety in numbers and all that. Like many other things in life - the key is accepting responsibility - as opposed to blaming society, genes, strict parents, fat injecting alien abductions etc.

At the end of the day - obesity is a killer - in huge numbers - and is costing us millions. Unfortunately - according to the article below - there are a huge number of thick parents who can't even recognise when their children are overweight - "More than 80 per cent of overweight children were perceived as being of normal weight by their parents, while none of the obese children had their correct weight category identified". So it doesn't look like a problem that's going away anytime soon.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0123/1224310626456.html

Red Cortina

Liam Henners257 wrote: »

No one said lack of self control full stop.
Just bouts of lack of self control.
Falling off the wagon momentarily, that kind of thing.

What more is there to it in your opinion?

I think that if it was just a case of eat less and move more then there would be a lot less obese people in this world. That maintaining that weight loss would not be such a rarity that they need to establish a database for it.

Researchers who study the cause of obesity still don't know why there is such an obesity epidemic so I sure as hell don't have a clue. Eat less and move more for sure but there is no doubt that hormones play a part....

The theory that your body defends a certain body fat set point (and I've read stuff about how this set point is determined during your teenage years) is interesting and would explain the unrelenting hunger that folks who lose weight experience.

I don't know if there is anything to the theory that being deficient in some micro-nutrients causes hunger which in turn leads to obesity, but it sure is interesting. Who knows!

Hanley wrote: »

I’m also a big believer in “set” bodyweight levels. Like once you get to a specific range and maintain it there for a sustained period, it can become difficult to move it up or down, which is kinda good once you can establish and maintain leanness.

I think that it works the other way round more often though ie you gain a certain amount of weight, lose it and then gain it back again plus interest. That seems more common TBH. And the higher set-point is the one your body will try to defend...

Also the whole theory on there being an adipostat is contra to the notion that you can eat less, move more to determine your body fat setpoint, don't you think?

dartstothesea

For something like a fat loss diet, does anyone think a person with a high fat cell count (as opposed to just a normal amount of 'large' fat cells) would need to take a different approach to their macros intake as a result?

Plates

Let's see if anyone comes on here and complains that even though they exercise regularly, eat in moderation and don't overindulge in alcohol that they're still obese.

zyxwvu

What if somebody became overweight over a long period of time through consumption of a lot of fizzy drinks (say 800 calories a day for 5 or more years) and completely removed them from their diet forever; would this huge structural loss of calories not causes their bodies to fall to a lower "natural" set point, provided they didn't replace the lost calories with something else? because as somebody who was as thin as a rake at age 11, I could do with losing a good stone and a half and I know it's the fizzy drinks that put it on!

Inspector Coptoor

dartstothesea wrote: »

For something like a fat loss diet, does anyone think a person with a high fat cell count (as opposed to just a normal amount of 'large' fat cells) would need to take a different approach to their macros intake as a result?

My initial reaction here is no.
But Im struggling to to explain why.

I dont think it makes much difference whether 50 fat cells are full to bursting compared to 100 fat cells half full, they would contain the same amount of stored energy, and in fact, now that I think about it, if the 50 fat cells were very full, this would probably stimulate the creation of more adipocytes.

EDIT: Just had another think about it there. If the 50 full cells and the 100 half full cells were then depleted at the same rate due to the same caloric deficit, it would/should stand to reason that the amount would be the same.
If the 50 full cells became 50 half full cells, the 100 half full cells should become 100 quarter full cells.

That is all theoretical etc as a calorie is a unit of energy and biology has a way of not doing what is expected but that is roughly what I would expect to happen

Hope that answers your question somewhat?

zyxwvu wrote: »

What if somebody became overweight over a long period of time through consumption of a lot of fizzy drinks (say 800 calories a day for 5 or more years) and completely removed them from their diet forever; would this huge structural loss of calories not causes their bodies to fall to a lower "natural" set point, provided they didn't replace the lost calories with something else? because as somebody who was as thin as a rake at age 11, I could do with losing a good stone and a half and I know it's the fizzy drinks that put it on!

The number one thing I'd say here is that if you're trying to lose weight, then you should try to get your calories from food and shouldnt be getting them in a liquid form like sugary fizzy drinks.

If you have a real fizzy drink addiction, why not change from Coke to Coke Zero or 7-Up to 7-Up Free?

Plates

Liam Henners257 wrote: »

If you have a real fizzy drink addiction, why not change from Coke to Coke Zero or 7-Up to 7-Up Free?

Or Sparkling Water with fresh orange, lemon or apple juice?

cormie

Thanks for all the replies. So it seems I'll just have to work that bit harder then I guess. I've got a lot going against me, child fat cells that want their fat, an underactive thyroid, a dodgy neck and back and a huge appetite and sweet tooth

Luckily I've replaced a lot of junk food with healthier alternatives so it's just a matter of maintaining myself a lot better which will from now on include regular stretching as I believe the lack of which, is what got me into injury in the first place.