Author: Issa

This photo comes from reader Jo, who says, "I come from a loooong line of ‘husky’ waist-less people, and I come by it VERY honestly. I love these pictures of my grandparents. They remind me of who I am."

I’ve written about how diets don’t work, which means it’s pretty difficult to make a fat person thin. It’s popular to blame fat people for that, but it turns out the story is a little more complicated. I’ve found a few other interesting places to dive into, including tales of thin people who try to get fat and the research on the genetics of fatness. After that, let’s tackle the big, bad willpower thing that everyone’s always going on about!

Making Thin People Fat

Dr Ethan Sims is famous for experimenting with trying to make thin people fat. He used prison inmates who would earn early release from their sentences if they could gain 20-25% of their weight. The inmates ate and ate, some eating as much as 10,000 calories a day while also reducing their activity. As the experiment went on, they had a worse and worse time of it, some developing an aversion to meals. Some of the men completed the task. Some of the men dropped out. Some were unable to gain the required weight, even though they were eating more than the men who were successful. For the men who had gained weight, their metabolisms increased by as much as 50% which means their bodies began burning way more calories than they normally did. In order to sustain their new size they had to aggressively eat 10 times more than “calories in/calories out” suggests should have been necessary for their new weights. As soon as the study was over, the men who had gained weight effortlessly dropped back to their previous weights and stayed there.

While not as scientific, similar results were obtained during a UK documentary (headless fattie alert). 10 thin people spent a month trying to eat enough to reach excessive calorie targets while not exercising and trying not to walk very much. One participant put on 8 pounds. Another put on 12 pounds. One put on just 1 pound. Another put on 12 pounds but saw a decrease in body fat percentage. Another put on 10 pounds, but his appearance didn’t seem to change. Despite his lack of activity, the weight had gone on as muscle instead of fat as his metabolism rose 30%. What happened after the experiment? Those who had gained dropped back to their previous weights without dieting or exercising.

It seems that it’s as difficult to make a thin person fat as it is to make a fat person thin.

Genetics

When asking whether you’re in control of how fat you are, we have to start with your genes. It turns out that genetics plays a huge role.

In one experiment, pairs of twins were fed 1000 extra calories a day, 6 days a week, for over 5 months. If the calories in/calories out people were right, the subjects should have all gained the same amount. Instead, their weight gains ranged from 9.5 pounds to 29 pounds. Furthermore, each set of twins gained the same amount as each other, and they put that extra weight on the same body area.

Another study looked at 673 pairs of twins, including identical twins, fraternal twins, twins reared together, and those reared apart. Here, again, it turns out that genetics are the key. Identical twins had the same BMIs, whether they were raised together or not. Fraternal twins varied more, even when they were raised together. The study concluded that weight is about 70% heritable, and that “childhood environment has little or no influence”. This didn’t really surprise the researchers, since this finding agreed with previous research.

When looking at 540 adult adoptees who had been adopted in their infancy, the adoptees were as fat or as thin as their biological parents, and their weight had no relation to that of their adoptive parents. The researchers concluded that “genetic influences have an important role in determining human fatness in adults, whereas the family environment alone has no apparent effect.”

Variation in weight is genetic. To put that 70% figure into perspective, think of other things you think of as genetic. Breast cancer? Only 30% heritable. Weight is also more heritable than heart disease, hypertension, or schizophrenia.

Starvation

In 1959, Dr Jules Hirsch performed experiments with fat people so that he could learn what happened to their fat cells when they lost weight. Through a rigorous, scientifically monitored diet, the fat people spent 8 months turning into thin people. The participants lost 100 pounds on average, but after the diet program was over they put the weight right back on, and Dr Hirsch wanted to know why. He and Dr Rudolph L Leibel repeated the diet with more fat people, to the same results. During the experiments, the doctors measured the participants’ metabolism, vital statistics, and psychiatric conditions, leading them to discover some interesting things. After they began to lose weight, the metabolisms of the fat people nose-dived. Whereas before the diet they burned the same number of calories per square meter of body surface as did thin people, after losing weight they burned as much as 24% fewer calories per square meter of surface area. The participants also developed issues with food: they dreamed about food, fantasized about food, fantasized about cheating on the diet, hid foods in their rooms, and binged. They became anxious, depressed, and even suicidal. This collection of symptoms even had a name, because it had been seen before.

In 1944, the Minnesota Starvation Experiment took 36 men of “normal” weight who lived in a dormitory for the duration of the experiment, and provided a thorough and fascinating look into what’s really going on when people reduce their caloric intake. The men walked about 3 miles a day and had their calories adjusted each week to help them achieve a weight-loss goal of 2.5 pounds a week. Their average calories for the “semi-starvation” period was 1600 a day. Want to guess what happened? They experienced dizziness, soreness, hair loss, hysteria, hypochondria, loss of sex drive, social withdrawal, severe emotional distress, and almost all of them became depressed. Their body temperatures, respiration, and heart rates declined. Some had swelling in their extremities. Some had ringing in their ears. One participant cut off three of his fingers. One became suicidal. They became obsessively preoccupied with food. They were irritable and anxious when calorie-adjusting time came. They couldn’t leave the dorm alone to ensure that they wouldn’t sneak food. They developed elaborate eating rituals and ways to make their food last longer. The semi-starvation period lasted almost 6 months, followed by a 3 month controlled re-feeding period. Some symptoms like dizziness and lethargy went away quickly, but others such as hunger and loss of sex drive lasted for many months.

The physical and emotional state of these men was called “semi-starvation neurosis”. Now go back to Dr Hirsch’s fat subjects who lost weight. They had the same emotional issues and metabolic measurements, leading the researchers to an interesting new conclusion: fat people who lose lots of weight might look like thin people, but they are actually fat people who are starving. All the people who lived at the hospital for these experiments developed the physical and psychological markers of starvation.

The Mythical Willpower

Thin people have trouble gaining weight, which means that fat people aren’t just thin-people-who-got-fat. Fat people who lose weight become fat-people-who-are-starving, and genetics help tell the tale of which is which. Even with that information, the anti-fat people always swing back around to willpower. They’ll concede that some people will have a harder time of it than others, but that if you just knuckle-down and try really hard you, too, can be thin. In Dr Hirsch’s study, a handful of people remained thin. They did so by essentially making being thin their life’s work, such as by becoming Weight Watchers leaders, and maintaining themselves in a permanent state of starvation. Setting aside the casual cruelty of people wanting you to starve, let’s look at what that actually means inside your body.

Some of the research with twins I mentioned earlier provided evidence that people have a “natural” weight to which they will gravitate, sometimes called a “set point”. This set point might span 10-20 pounds or so. Losing or gaining more than that will be very difficult. Whenever you lose or gain much more than that, your metabolism shifts to compensate and nudge you back to your set point.

Efforts to lose weight kick in other powerful biological responses. Increasing research is showing that reducing weight is countered by various neurochemical changes that increase the urge to eat and decrease energy expenditure. For example, food restriction and weight loss decreases leptin, a protein hormone. This decrease initiates aggressive food-seeking behavior. A gastrointestinal hormone called ghrelin is responsible for feelings of hunger and this hormone increases when food is restricted. There are also cortico-limbic controls that regulate eating and that kick into overdrive when deprived. Peptide YY is a hormone that helps determine your appetite by communicating with multiple parts of your brain to regulate how much you eat and the pleasure involved in eating.

These things cannot be controlled by willpower. These are powerful biological controls as basic as those related to breathing, blinking, sleeping, and pissing and shitting. Your so called “willpower” is simply not in charge. You can’t just “decide” to eat less. You can’t just “try harder”. We’re talking about how your body works here. We’re talking about your body working. When you try to eat less, your body compensates to help you fix the problem. You can call it a lack of willpower and discipline but the evidence shows that the resistance is biological.

Conclusion

The conclusions are the same, study after study. Diets don’t work. You cannot generally make fat people thin or thin people fat. Genetics play a huge role in deciding which is which. Your bodily processes take care of the rest. It’s as simple as that.

A favorite picture of me from exactly two years ago.

Last year Joshua and I raised extra pigs to sell to our friends. It completely delights me to be able to help more people get meat from animals who are raised in non-industrial conditions. And it makes me happy that I get to have more pigs! I’ve just started talking with people about this years pigs, and I thought the information I’ve compiled for my friends might be interesting to someone else out there, too.

Buying a Pig From The Wallow

You are paying for Joshua and me to buy and raise a pig for you and deliver the pig to the processor once it reaches market weight. We are NOT legally able to sell you meat, which means you are required to pick up and pay for the meat at the processor’s yourself. There’s a lot of information here, so be sure to ask any questions you have!

Price:

• The goal cost for you is around $500, but this price will vary depending on the exact weight of your pig at slaughter time.
• You will owe $1.75 per pound hanging weight to me, payable in two parts: a $200 deposit due by March 1st and the balance to me due when you come to pick up your meat.
• You will owe a $30 slaughter fee and $0.40 per pound hanging weight to the processor on the day you pick up your meat. I am not in charge of processor fees, and they are subject to change. I will let you know as soon as I know if they change.
• If you are splitting your pig with someone else, one person should be chosen to be the person who pays me and the processor. You can work out collecting the money between yourselves, and then one person does the paying for each whole pig.

Pig Details:

• I aim for a live weight of around 300 pounds per pig. This results in approximately 216 pounds hanging weight and 144 pounds of stuff for your freezer. This post gives more information about these terms.
• The pigs live at The Wallow until the day they go to the processor. You are welcome to visit at any time and are encouraged to ask any and all questions you have about their care.
• The pigs’ diet is primarily commercial feed, supplemented by hay, pasture forage, cull chickens, and kitchen scraps.
• We do not do any preventative medication (no antibiotics in the feed, for example), and we take steps to prevent medical needs, but I do treat medical issues as they arise.
• Your pig is NOT raised vegetarian and is NOT raised organic. Your pig IS raised to be happy.
• If you have ANY questions about the care of the pigs, please ask. I don’t know what you might want to know, but I’m happy to tell you anything.

Pick Up Logistics:

• I buy piglets in March. They will be ready for slaughter sometime between July and October.
• I will coordinate the slaughter date with you so that pick up works with your schedule. I will be able to tell you a few weeks leading up the slaughter what the trajectory looks like based on the pigs’ weight.
• You need 3-4 large coolers. The meat is already frozen when you pick it up, so you don’t need extra ice. You just pack it in coolers and then head home. This post talks about space needs so you can judge your cooler and freezer space needs.

Meat Details:

• I am not responsible for any cutting errors made by the butcher.
• This post talks about how much meat and what kinds of cuts you can expect from your pig.
• For hams and bacon, you have the option of taking them home to wet cure on your own or having the processor send them to Benton’s (a local business) for curing and smoking. If you have Benton’s cure and smoke for you (smoking is optional), there is an extra cost of $1.50/lb for the ham/bacon, payable to Benton’s when you pick up the meat.
• The bacon is ready about 6 weeks after being dropped off at Benton’s and the hams are ready after 4 months. After Benton’s cures/smokes the meat, it can go back to the processor and they can slice it up for you.
• What Benton’s does is called salt-cure or country-cure. It may be very different from the ham and bacon flavor you’re used to and its preparation is different. You may want to Google around to learn about country-curing so you’re not surprised.

The Unexpected:

• If your pig dies prior to processing, I will refund your $200.
• Some things could result in your pig needing to be processed prior to the weight goal. A broken leg is an example. In this case, you will still be responsible for the hanging weight prices to me and the processor, but these amounts would be much smaller than estimated, and you would get less meat than expected.
• If you are unable to pay the remaining balance on your pig, you do not get a refund of your deposit, nor do you get your pig or the meat. You are free to try to find someone else who wants to buy your pig or split it with you. It is up to you to work something out with the other party.

Near the beginning of my childcare career, I read the book How to Behave So Your Children Will, Too by Sal Severe. As a newcomer to childhood development theory, it made comforting sense, seemingly outlining sensible ways to react to children’s misbehavior. These days I don’t look on this book so highly. It’s full of behavioral modifications and reactionary prescriptions. Your kid does this and then you do that. The book presents a view of the parent-child relationship that is transactional, overly rigid, and entirely carrot-and-stick. Severe recommends charts and stickers, total parental consistency, punishment escalation until the child complies, and utilizing his detailed lists of reward options for different age groups.

One section of the book stood out to me, and I’ve thought of it many times over the years. Chapter Six begins with a tale of Severe spending the day with a couple and their 3 kids. The day ends with everyone taking a trip out for ice cream. When the dad later asks Severe for parenting advice, Severe says that they did the ice cream thing all wrong by not connecting the special treat to the kids behavior.

Successful parents connect special events to good behavior: “You have had an excellent day today. Mom and I would like to take you out for some ice cream.” You can be more specific: “I saw you sharing several times today. That’s something that makes Mom and me feel fantastic. When we feel good, we like doing something special.”

The chapter is called, “Never Give Away the Ice Cream”.

That phrase stuck me through the years, even as my childcare philosophy radically veered away from this conditional, controlling mindset. “Never give away the ice cream” became a catchphrase in my mind, representing the kinds of relationships I did not want to have with children.

Now, fast forward. For parenting advice, I’ve come to rely much more heavily on Alfie Kohn’s Unconditional Parenting (UP) and people advocating a consensual parenting approach. I also ran across Taking Children Seriously (TCS), which is a philosophy that seeks to be entirely non-coercive with children. On a TCS email list, one person was asking for suggestions about getting kids to leave a business that is closing when the kids don’t want to leave. Another person suggested offering the kids ice cream on the ride home or some other enticing thing.

Hmm. In the Severe book, he advocates withholding the ice cream until it can be a reward for good behavior. In this email conversation, someone is recommending the ice cream as an enticement for good behavior. Those seem like they could be opposites, yet they veer awfully close to one other with the tactic of using ice cream to gain compliance.

Then another TCS list member asked if ice cream makes the time-after-leaving nicer, why not offer it to make the time-before-leaving nicer, too? Why would you only offer it at this specific time?

This exchange caused a real light bulb moment for me. If ice cream is such a good thing, why are you withholding it all the time? If you aren’t withholding it, if your child can freely choose when to have ice cream or not, then ice cream is removed as an option for coercion. This was a sharp reminder that while parenting philosophies seem to swing along a spectrum, it’s also possible to just get off the spectrum entirely.

In Unconditional Parenting, Alfie Kohn talks similarly about love, punishment, and rewards. People often think that punishing bad behavior and rewarding good behavior are vastly different, but they are really just shades of the same thing, and the name of the thing is control. Kohn talks about the emotional dangers of withholding parental time, attention, and love, even through such widely accepted practices as time-out.

Love is even better and even more important than ice cream and should be ever-present in the parent-child relationship. In a very real sense, love is the food and fuel that grow the child. Or it ought to be anyway. What happens if you take your love off the table as tool for control by making sure love is always, actively given and (more importantly) received?

Coming back around to ice cream, let me just say that ice cream is really, really yummy, and I eat it whenever I want. Should I suddenly start hiding it or not buying it because I have a child? Should I reserve it only for times when I deem that he’s been good? Should I save it up for times when I need to prod him to do something?

How about this instead? What if there was ice cream in the freezer now and then, and Dylan could eat it or not eat it whenever he liked, the same as I can, the same as Joshua does, the same as you do? How might my relationship with Dylan be entirely different if, instead of the ice cream sitting between us as a tool of control, ice cream was just the yummy sweet treat that it is? I’m guessing that our relationship will be a bit sweeter as well.

Last Monday I posted Parenting Isn’t Hard, and the lively comments rocketed that post to the top of my Most Popular list over on the sidebar. Thank you to all of you who joined in the discussion.

Today, that post has been syndicated at BlogHer as No Excuses: Parenting Isn’t Hard. They haven’t been as talkative a bunch as you guys! I was nervous about what kinds of comments the post might generate, but so far the comments aren’t flying.

I’m really excited to have a post up on BlogHer, and I hope to have more over there in the future!