Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Fat Is Genetic

Yesterday I blogged on a possible relationship between welfare reform and obesity. Today the Times has an article by Gina Kolata reporting on research that shows a very high correlation between heredity and obesity. Two big studies, one on identical twins reared in different families, the other line of research is fat people who lost weight (and then regained it) and thin people who gained weight to become fat (and then lost it).

I can, reluctantly, accept the research. There's a long history of things about which people have theorized, often finding moral lessons in the theory. Unfortunately science normally blows the theories up, or at least severely complicates them, so I can't claim be good because my weight is about what it was when I graduated from college and therefore can't look down on people who differ from me by 100 pounds or so. Life often disappoints that way.

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