Why Do Some People Never Get Fat? Scientists May Have The Answer.

[James]

Why Do Some People Never Get Fat? Scientists May Have the Answer | Discoblog | Discover Magazine

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Remember the guy from Super Size Me who ate about 23,000 Bic Macs and never got fat? Ever wonder how he did it? Turns out he may have been born without the “fat enzyme.”

Hmm...

[Indiscreet]

Well I can't imagine anything other than genetic manipulation would fix that, and who knows what side effects that would have?

[Tgann]

There was a program on the BBC not so long ago, where a group of people were filmed eating **** for a month with little to no physical exercise to see the impact is had on their body. they'd have they're weight checked every wk and various other checks done (like measurments and body fat). one of the group was a chinese guy who gained hardly any fat but actually increased his muscle mass where the majority of the group just became fat. have you seen this? in the end they put it down to his genetic make-up.

[Gaz Man]

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There was a program on the BBC not so long ago, where a group of people were filmed eating **** for a month with little to no physical exercise to see the impact is had on their body. they'd have they're weight checked every wk and various other checks done (like measurments and body fat). one of the group was a chinese guy who gained hardly any fat but actually increased his muscle mass where the majority of the group just became fat. have you seen this? in the end they put it down to his genetic make-up.

Yeh I saw that too. It was pretty interesting. It's on you tube for those that have an hour to kill. Probably fairly interesting for the fatties and hard gainers amongst us.

YouTube - 1-6 Why Are Thin People Not Fat
YouTube - 2-6 Why Are Thin People Not Fat
YouTube - 3-6 Why Are Thin People Not Fat
YouTube - 4-6 Why Are Thin People Not Fat
YouTube - 5-6 Why Are Thin People Not Fat
YouTube - 6-6 Why Are Thin People Not Fat

[dope540]

damn. that gene missed me out.

[NU_nutrition_TS]

That blog post is full of errors and misguided assumptions:

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Remember the guy from Super Size Me who ate about 23,000 Bic Macs and never got fat?

Morgan Spurlock has never released his food diaries and has been called out by Tom Naughton the film-maker behind the Fat Head movie, who showed that if Spurlock had stuck to his own rules (as delineated at the start of Spurlock's documentary) he could not have eaten the amount of calories he claims he did. So that may have something to do with why he didn't get fat.

However, the documentary does show a doctor telling him he has development other negative health consequences from his fast food diet. As Charles Washington (from the Zeroing In On Health blog/forum) often remarks: "only the lucky ones get fat" - meaning getting fat is the body's last ditch attempt to protect itself from a health-destroying junk diet. If you are not getting fat you are probably getting damaged in other ways.

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Still, don’t go on a Big Mac binge just yet: Until scientist can figure out how to manipulate this gene to create the magic skinny pill, we will continue to metabolize food like we did when we were hunters and gathers.

This is really an assinine statement - it was our ancestors ability to get fat that ensured the human race survived. Unlike today - in the western world - food wasn't plentiful/readily available, so storing energy as fat was a way of surviving periods of food shortage by filling up when it was available.

Just because we have the luxury of food when we want doesn't mean to say that will always be the case! Imagine if people, lost in remote places due to non-fatal air crashes, etc., weren't able to store excess energy as fat - they would last a day without food, never mind the days/weeks that some have survived!

[CosmicFish]

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Morgan Spurlock has never released his food diaries and has been called out by Tom Naughton the film-maker behind the Fat Head movie, who showed that if Spurlock had stuck to his own rules (as delineated at the start of Spurlock's documentary) he could not have eaten the amount of calories he claims he did. So that may have something to do with why he didn't get fat.

The article is pretty vague, so it's not surprising you missed it, but by "the guy who ate 23,000 big macs", they are not actually referring to Spurlock (who, I agree, is a twit with an agenda), but to Don Gorske, who had a small part in the movie:

Don Gorske - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Besides, I believe Spurlock did get fat, didn't he? I don't remember the exact values, but I seem to recall he piled a fair few pounds on himself.

[musefan]

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damn. that gene missed me out.

it got me lol

i find it hard to put on weight and i even lose weight when i stop training lol

[dope540]

lol. fair trade me thinks. i can add mass quite comfortably.

[NU_nutrition_TS]

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The article is pretty vague, so it's not surprising you missed it, but by "the guy who ate 23,000 big macs", they are not actually referring to Spurlock (who, I agree, is a twit with an agenda), but to Don Gorske, who had a small part in the movie:

Don Gorske - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Besides, I believe Spurlock did get fat, didn't he? I don't remember the exact values, but I seem to recall he piled a fair few pounds on himself.

Thanks for pointing that out CF! In that wiki article it says:

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Gorske claims that after getting his first car, the first place he went was to McDonald's on May 17, 1972[1] he purchased and ate three Big Macs at lunch time. He then returned two more times that day to consume a total of nine Big Macs the same day he discovered the sandwich. He further claims to have eaten 265 Big Macs in the following month, an average of 8.5 Big Macs per day. If true, this would be equivalent to over 4,600 calories and 247 grams of fat daily, for a total of 143,100 calories and 16.9 pounds of fat in one month. He also claims to drink almost nothing but Coca-Cola and, according to Super Size Me, he rarely eats the fries. At first, Don kept all the boxes of Big Macs he ate in the back of his car.

That's always assuming his 'claims' bear any relation to reality! Maybe there is a 'reverse syndrome' to fat people who under-report their food intake and this is a non-fat person who habitually over-reports his intake?!