No Excuses!
So which weighs more heavily, nature or nurture? Put another way, what is more responsible for the way we are, our genetic inheritance or our early exposure to a certain familial lifestyle and the choices we make for ourselves in the environment we inhabit? Certainly all of the above are responsible for what we make of ourselves, but genetic inheritance is not necessarily the major portion responsible for the condition we achieve.
It's - wait for it - lifestyle. We option to live in a certain way, and that is mostly what determines how we develop. We can make intelligent choices and enjoy life to the fullest, being physically active into our elder years, and forestalling the appearance of chronic conditions that fall to those who haven't bothered to make "best practise" choices in lifestyle. Or we can become fully complicit in stumbling precipitously into a faltering old age.
If we've become accustomed to a certain way of living, patterning ourselves after what we've become familiar with and comfortable with, and make no effort to question those choices, we're victims of circumstances. Particularly when those patterns are inimical to good health and enjoyment of life to its fullest. These are circumstances that we allow to occur.
But it's awfully handy to shrug off responsibility and to claim there were no choices given us; genetics predisposed us.
In this instance, to becoming grossly overweight. Because that's what the family looks like; from parents to offspring: burdensomely overweight. Certainly there can be a genetic predisposition to being adipose-afflicted; some people do, as a result of the way their body burns calories, put on more weight than others, eating the same food.
Which means nothing other than if one realizes that is the case, then one becomes more careful about food choices. Their quality and quantity.
Obesity experts agree that genetics play a role in determining body composition, and the BMI tells them a great deal in a familial context. Everyone's metabolism is slightly different, but within a family situation there can be a levelling off of those differences. And studies corroborate the understanding of genetics, yet only to a 35% to 40% extent.
Which means that 65% to 60% of the propensity to over-weight is environmentally induced.
Living in a society that has long since accepted the convenience of fast foods, pre-packaged and processed foods, and as much food as one could wish for.
Social scientists appear to have reached an interesting conclusion comparing the eating habits of North Americans as opposed to Europeans - French people, in this instance. Where an American will eat all the food presented to him/her, while a French woman or man will eat only as much food as satisfies hunger.
That too is environmental; in this instance bespeaking a social/cultural norm. In France, eat until satiety; but in the U.S. just eat. There appears to be no satiety recognition. The U.S. social eating culture is mirrored in Canada.
Our body shapes are fairly well pre-determined by our genetic inheritance, so if we eat to excess we'll put on the poundage in areas where it settled on our parents' ample bodies.
On the other hand, if we learn to value food as a necessity as well as a pleasure, and value our bodies equally, we can learn to distinguish what represents wholesome nutritious food and opt for that, and eat what our bodies require - and then push away from the table.
"Lifestyle would trump bad genetics in the majority of cases", according to Robert Hegele, an endocrinologist at the Robarts Research Institute at the University of Western Ontario.
If your parents and your family at large saw no value in recreational exercise or being physically active, it's likely you won't, either. But it doesn't have to be that way. No more than it has to be that a child, grown to adulthood, must feel the need to emulate the eating patterns of its parents. We make choices, and we live with the results.
Then society picks up the pieces with medical interventions as a result of poor lifestyle choices.
It's - wait for it - lifestyle. We option to live in a certain way, and that is mostly what determines how we develop. We can make intelligent choices and enjoy life to the fullest, being physically active into our elder years, and forestalling the appearance of chronic conditions that fall to those who haven't bothered to make "best practise" choices in lifestyle. Or we can become fully complicit in stumbling precipitously into a faltering old age.
If we've become accustomed to a certain way of living, patterning ourselves after what we've become familiar with and comfortable with, and make no effort to question those choices, we're victims of circumstances. Particularly when those patterns are inimical to good health and enjoyment of life to its fullest. These are circumstances that we allow to occur.
But it's awfully handy to shrug off responsibility and to claim there were no choices given us; genetics predisposed us.
In this instance, to becoming grossly overweight. Because that's what the family looks like; from parents to offspring: burdensomely overweight. Certainly there can be a genetic predisposition to being adipose-afflicted; some people do, as a result of the way their body burns calories, put on more weight than others, eating the same food.
Which means nothing other than if one realizes that is the case, then one becomes more careful about food choices. Their quality and quantity.
Obesity experts agree that genetics play a role in determining body composition, and the BMI tells them a great deal in a familial context. Everyone's metabolism is slightly different, but within a family situation there can be a levelling off of those differences. And studies corroborate the understanding of genetics, yet only to a 35% to 40% extent.
Which means that 65% to 60% of the propensity to over-weight is environmentally induced.
Living in a society that has long since accepted the convenience of fast foods, pre-packaged and processed foods, and as much food as one could wish for.
Social scientists appear to have reached an interesting conclusion comparing the eating habits of North Americans as opposed to Europeans - French people, in this instance. Where an American will eat all the food presented to him/her, while a French woman or man will eat only as much food as satisfies hunger.
That too is environmental; in this instance bespeaking a social/cultural norm. In France, eat until satiety; but in the U.S. just eat. There appears to be no satiety recognition. The U.S. social eating culture is mirrored in Canada.
Our body shapes are fairly well pre-determined by our genetic inheritance, so if we eat to excess we'll put on the poundage in areas where it settled on our parents' ample bodies.
On the other hand, if we learn to value food as a necessity as well as a pleasure, and value our bodies equally, we can learn to distinguish what represents wholesome nutritious food and opt for that, and eat what our bodies require - and then push away from the table.
"Lifestyle would trump bad genetics in the majority of cases", according to Robert Hegele, an endocrinologist at the Robarts Research Institute at the University of Western Ontario.
If your parents and your family at large saw no value in recreational exercise or being physically active, it's likely you won't, either. But it doesn't have to be that way. No more than it has to be that a child, grown to adulthood, must feel the need to emulate the eating patterns of its parents. We make choices, and we live with the results.
Then society picks up the pieces with medical interventions as a result of poor lifestyle choices.
Labels: Health, Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ 5:33 PM
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