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In reply to the discussion: "Pregnant, obese...and in danger" [View all]eridani
(51,907 posts)24. I'm talking the genetics behind insulin resistance
If you had to chase your uncertain food supply, you wouldn't gain huge amounts of weight even if insulin resistant. Not to mention which, you would most likely die of something else well before insulin resistance resulted in lack of blood sugar control.
The following is a quote from an article in the New York Review of Books "Godot Comes to Sarajevo" (Vol XL #17, pp 52-59, October 21, 1993) by Susan Sontag. She went there to put on the play "Waiting for Godot" when Sarajevo was under daily bombardment--people wanted artistic diversion as much as they wanted food. The quote is an aside from the main topic.
"The only actor who seemed to have normal stamina was the oldest member of the cast. Ines Fancovic, who is 68. Still a stout woman, she has lost more than 60 pounds since the beginning of the siege, and this may have accounted for her remarkable energy. The other actors were visibly underweight and tired easily. Lucky must stand motionless through most of his long scene but never sets down the heavy bag he carries. Atko, who plays him (and now weighs no more than 100 pounds) asked me to excuse him if he occasionally rested his empty suitcase on the floor throughout the rehearsal period. Whenever I halted the run-through for a few minutes to change a movement or a line reading, all the actors, with the exception of Ines, would instantly lie down on the stage.
"Another symptom of fatigue: the actors were slower to mem- orize their lines than any I have ever worked with. Ten days before the opening they still needed to consult their scripts, and were not word-perfect until the day before the dress rehearsal."
"Another symptom of fatigue: the actors were slower to mem- orize their lines than any I have ever worked with. Ten days before the opening they still needed to consult their scripts, and were not word-perfect until the day before the dress rehearsal."
It's pretty obvious to me that Ines was energetic not because of weight loss, but because she had the weight to lose. Note that she is still fat after having endured famine conditions for a couple of years. It seems to have been much easier for her to tolerate going from 300# to 240# (my guess) than for Atko to go from 160# to 100#.
This is a good illustration of why people are fat--more of their ancestors than usual had to withstand conditions like this. It pays to have at least a few people in every society who are still mentally alert and physically capable under high stress conditions that make every one else temporarily weak and stupid, even if they are disadvantaged when times are good. (Think sickle cell anemia and malaria resistance.)
If you have a metabolism like Ines, the only hope for coming close to "normal" weight is a lifetime commitment to recreating famine conditions, and for some people even that isn't going to work. Society in general seems to think that fat people ought to be required to live under a lifelong state of siege, even though they, like most people, would rather have a real life.
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Major problem... as is the incredible increase in risk for major surgery of all types in the obese.
hlthe2b
Mar 2015
#1
Although the first novel diet drug in over a decade has been FDA approved and has been having good
Snotcicles
Mar 2015
#3
I think it is a result of our "blame" society... Some refuse to look at it as a medical issue,
hlthe2b
Mar 2015
#4
the last one i remember well was fen-phen/redux; that had good results too -- until it didn't.
ND-Dem
Mar 2015
#35
I'm not even sure what my kid weighed at birth- the hospital falsified the record.
LeftyMom
Mar 2015
#33
the great thing about this article is that it talks about the medical issues involved.
CTyankee
Mar 2015
#12
I had my babies when I was 5'6" and weighed 130 lbs. and I was in my early 20s.
CTyankee
Mar 2015
#20
I agree with you. The article started right off with a personal anecdote for one thing.
kcr
Mar 2015
#41
Wow, that is interesting! I had no idea. I thought our cave people were rather
CTyankee
Mar 2015
#21
Yeah, but a 240 pound, 5'4" woman was not likely to move very fast, either
TexasMommaWithAHat
Mar 2015
#52
Is talking about the dangers involved in smoking cigarettes "Tobacco Shaming"?
KittyWampus
Mar 2015
#53
going to tuck this in right here- look into Leslie Sansone's walking exercise dvd's. Many on Youtube
KittyWampus
Mar 2015
#48
There is still so much we don't know scientifically about why simply dieting and exercising doesn't
liberal_at_heart
Mar 2015
#28
liberalatheart- post here if you'd like some good recipes for sweet stuff that are not high glycemic
KittyWampus
Mar 2015
#50