[Finny]

Hello, fellow FReeper and FRiend! You responded to my comment that obseity was a behavioral issue as opposed to an economic one, that, "Genetics are involved too. Some people are going to be fat even if they have normal diets and some can eat like pigs and never get fat."

I respectfully submit that even WHEN it is affected by genetics, it remains a behavioral issue.

I am an alcoholic of the same Dr. Jeckyl - Mr. Hyde type as my grandfather. I am convinced that genetics play an enormous role in alcoholism, and that alcoholism is more like an allergy than a disease. Yet it remains a behavioral issue. Certain behaviors result in symptoms (starting fights and being arrested, in my case!), and a change in those behaviors results in total elimination of the "symptoms."

If alcoholism is a disease, it is entirely self-inflicted and self-cured, regardless of genetics. That's the hard, cold, ruthless reality. Accepting it is simple and true.

A mammal cannot manufacture fat out of zero input. Perhaps some bodies manufacture certains kinds of food much differently than other bodies, hence tending more toward obesity in one than in another. But I would bet you all the tea in China that if I was able to get one fat person, regardless of genetics, to duplicate my exercise and eating on a daily basis for one year, they would lose fat. It's a mathematical certainty.

It's all behavioral. It's just that individuals each have to tune their behavioral meters to widely varying norms. It's not fair, but nobody said life was fair.

[TKDietz]

You can quit drinking alcohol. You can’t quit eating. You also can’t expect everybody to be some kind of fitness guru who eats nothing but healthy food and who exercises all the time. Some people are just going to be fat, especially in our society where we are all on the go and about the only quick cheap food is junk food.