For me,
keeping a healthy bodyweight and a good skin condition are all for the sake of
my psychological wellbeing. For a longtime,
I believed that bodyweight is a life style choice, similar to skincare regime one
chooses to follow. However, a recently
announcement by the American Medical Association (AMA) declaring obesity as a
disease gave me a pause. To put it lightly,
I disagree with the AMA’s choice of words.
Last week, I
met with a leading obesity expert from the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Jensen. Over the dinner, I was delighted to find out
that Dr. Jensen is holding the same view as mine regarding AMA’s decision. Over the course of the dinner, I’ve also
learned a great deal about obesity and its causes. The lesson for me is that—obesity does have
genetic connections; however, the gene can only increase or decrease one’s odds
of being obese but does not necessarily lead to obesity. Only when gene being combined with an unhealthy
lifestyle, obesity happens.
One study Dr.
Jensen described was a study he did in late 1990. His group studied a group of volunteers
including one subset who were known to not gain weight no matter how much they
eat (the few lucky ones as I called them) and a second subset who, like us
regular folks, had the tendency of gaining weight when eat too much. Before the experiment, each volunteer’s
baseline metabolism was carefully measured.
Then, each volunteer was asked to consume an excess of 9000 Calories per
day over his baseline need over a period of time. Each volunteer was asked to carry on his daily
life as usual and was under the strict of order of not exercising on purpose. Over the experimental period, each volunteer’s
daily activity was monitored.
It was observed
that volunteers in the non-weight gaining group significantly increased his
non-voluntary (or subconscious) activities such as leg shaking, finger tapping,
hand waving, or mindless pacing. Through
these non-voluntary activities, individuals in this group were able to burn off
close to 9000 excess calories per day and basically maintained their bodyweight
throughout the experimental period. In
comparison, as expected, individuals in the weight-gaining group gained
significant weight by the end of the experiment. The results of the study were published in
1998. See, Burguera
B, Jensen
MD. Obesity - is the
brain responsible? Curr Opin
Gastroenterol. 1998 Mar; 14(2):147-150.
Dr. Jensen postulates to me that there is likely
a feedback loop from the digestive system to brain. Over-consumption of food causes certain individuals’
brain to react, which subconsciously increases the individual’s physical
activities to the extent that the increase activities match the excess calories
consumed. That link, Dr. Jensen,
believed, is generic.
However, we don’t have to rely on our subconscious
or gene to increase our physical activities.
We could choose to walk around more consciously; we could choose to
consume fewer calories; and we could even choose to increase our baseline
metabolism by living a more active lifestyle.
To me, that is a choice.
Thanks for reading.
Connie
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