[quote=ocrenter]CAR, sorry to hear about your sister. Just remember, no one here is saying there’s no metabolic differences. And it is true, if someone is genetically overweight, they will be healthier staying overweight. What I have seen however is because of the changes we have induced for ourselves over the last 50 years, a lot of the genetically overweight are now obese, and this is quite concerning.
The same can be said for a lot of Filipinos I know. They are meant to be skinny people, and what is happening is a lot of them are overweight, and their bodies can’t handle it. They develop diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol problem, and gout just by being overweight.
Lastly, you are right about people that over do the exercise. There is evidence that extreme exercise leads to cardiac scarring.
The Buddha was very wise in his advocation of the middle path. Most things in life are truly better in moderation.[/quote]
Humans have moved from an agrarian lifestyle to an industrialized lifestyle, with most of these changes occuring in just a few decades. Our bodies have gone from tending fields and doing a lot of manual labor to sitting behind computer screens in sunless cubicles all day. We now sit in traffic for hours per day to get to and from work. We eat processed food — food that came about because nobody is home anymore to prepare the fresh food from the fields…and we don’t have fields anymore.
Without a doubt, these lifesyle changes have wreacked havoc on our bodies, and many people whose bodies had evolved over thousands of years to withstand famine now have access to thousands of calories that they are completely unable to handle. Some bodies have adapted well, possibly because their ancestors had access to more food, or because they decend from people who would have died, but when food became more available, they began living longer and having more children. We don’t really know why, but there is no doubt in my mind that some people are able to handle these changes better than others.
I think people need to focus on living a healthy lifestyle rather than focus on the appearance of a healthy lifestyle. Some people will be skinny, others will be “normal,” and some others will be “overweight.” What’s important is that they eat healthy foods, get plenty of exercise (preferably outdoors), have good relationships with family and friends, and reduce their stress levels as much as possible. We need to move away from the notion that everyone has to look the same. It’s unrealistic and unhealthy, and it’s causing a lot of young girls to experiment with very dangerous habits that will end up killing them far sooner than a few extra pounds will.
People are different — some are tall, some short, some blonde, some brown, some heavy, some light, some black, some brown, some white, some gay, some straight, and some in between. What matters most is that they are good people. Let’s focus on the important things in life, and stop obsessing about the things that people have little/no control over.
