Why do some people get fat while others remain thin?

Why do some people get fat while others stay thin?

Under the same living conditions, some people quickly get fat, while others remain thin. You can say that you need to eat less and move more. Scientific data suggests that these are far from the main reasons for the appearance of excess weight.

Initially, doctors believed that people get fat from laziness. They believed that the more a person lies, sits and snacks, the slower the metabolism and, as a result, more fat. But it turned out that obese people have more active energy metabolism than thin people.

Genetics have found that our eating behavior is dramatically affected by a small defect in one gene responsible for the synthesis of the hormone leptin.

American scientists conducted a study on prisoners in a Vermont prison. They were fed a double ration for 200 days. By the end of the trial, 20 people had gained between 9 and 12 kg in weight. However, after giving up the high-calorie diet, they all quickly lost the excess they had gained. Thus, a normally functioning body itself maintains a balance between calorie intake and expenditure. Body weight remains almost constant for each person. And only two prisoners retained the kilograms they had gained, and it was they who were diagnosed with a “genetic defect.”

Scientists have identified another factor that spurs the activity of obesity genes. It turned out that the better a pregnant woman eats and the higher the weight of the newborn baby, the less likely it is that he will become fat in adulthood.

There is another period when the obesity gene can be activated - this is adolescence. It depends on the nutritional pattern of young people. They eat most often on the go, in cafeterias, pizzerias, student canteens, etc. They usually choose easily accessible sugar-containing carbohydrates: coffee and tea with sugar, cakes, buns, candies, sweet bars and soda. This diet was called in the specialized literature “cafeteria mode.” The result of such a diet is metabolic syndrome, which in common parlance sounds like “metabolic disorder.”