Horizon: Why Are Thin People Not Fat?
Posted by Paola
Recommended viewing:
Horizon – Why Are Thin People Not Fat?
Monday 26 January, BBC 2
Watch online with iPlayer or if you’re outside the UK.
It is estimated that there are now more people on the planet at risk from obesity-related diseases than there are suffering from starvation. Western society in the 21st century is eating itself into an early grave but, while the ranks of the overweight and obese are swelling, there is a significant proportion of the population who are apparently immune to this phenomenon.
Horizon – the BBC’s flagship science strand – sets out to discover what is keeping these people thin. Are some people really able to consume as much as they like without becoming obese? If so, how do they do it?
Ten volunteers have agreed to eat double their normal intake of calories over four weeks to see how their bodies cope with a month-long chocolate, cake and fast-food frenzy.
The test is based on a 1967 experiment on Vermont State Prison inmates, in which medical researcher Ethan Simms recruited a group of prisoners to eat as much as they could until they had gained an extra 25 per cent of their original body weight. The reward was early release. Despite eating up to 10,000 calories per day, only six of the nine who took part succeeded. The experiment seemed to show that, however available and calorie-rich food is, not everyone will become overweight.
More than 40 years on, Horizon, with the help of Swedish scientist Fredrik Nystrom from the University of Linkoping, follows the volunteers over the course of the month to find out what is happening to the extra calories they are consuming, and why their bodies respond in such different ways.
Horizon also meets Professor Jane Wardle from University College London, who is exploring whether eating habits are genetic or learned, and Dr Nikhil Dhurandhar, who believes a virus could be responsible for some cases of obesity.
The programme asks whether obesity has an evolutionary advantage, if there could be a genetic basis to will-power, and whether people have a natural weight that their bodies strive to maintain, however much they eat or exercise.
There’s a good review by John Beresford on TV Scoop:
As a fat person who’s struggled all his life to stay on the acceptable side of obese (and largely – haha! – failed), I was slap bang in the target audience for the first of a new series of Horizon, which set out to redress the balance of research into weight gain and weight loss. 99% of all studies look at people who are already fat and try to work out how they got that way. This time, Horizon took 10 slim people and investigated what would happen to them if they were forced to spend four weeks eating twice as many calories as they normally do. The result was one of the most fascinating insights into body size ever broadcast. more…
Simon said,
30 January 2009 at 1:41 pm
The programme was fascinating (and nostalgically, very ‘Horizon’), especially for me was how the ‘thin people’ just naturally thought what they were eating was too much, and that they didn’t eat ‘for the sake of it’. For me, I’ve always eaten whether I’m hungry or not… They seemed to think what they were eating was horrific. I looked at it and though, ‘ooh, that looks nice’, or, ‘I could/do/have’ eaten stuff like that…
I know people like that, and they often forget about food, and if you ask them if they are hungry (possibly after they’ve hardly eaten all day), they’ll say “oh, dunno, hadn’t thought about it”… But I eat all the time, for the enjoyment of it, and the habit, I always know if I’m hungry or not, you could say I’m obsessed about food… My mum (and others) comment that when I’m eating I really focus on it, and really look at it, take it all in, really enjoy it… I’ve watched other people eat, and some of them hardly notice it, often talking whilst they eat etc.
And, the thing about the number of fat cells in the body, as you get fat the number increases, and then they increase in size. But! You can never decrease the number of cells! So if you’ve ever been fat (as a child was their example), you may always struggle to be thin…
Finally, the body ‘knowing’ what size it wants you to be, and naturally gravitating towards that. I swear my body wants to be 15 stone. I was that weight when I was 15 years old… And whenever I’m less, it happily tries to go back up to that… And, I’ve never really been more than that, even over the last year or two of eating too much… But, when I was ‘fit’, and working out lots etc, and had muscle, and slimmer, I wasn’t that much lighter really, perhaps nearer 14, or 14 and a half. So maybe I’m not far off anyway?
Paola said,
30 January 2009 at 2:46 pm
It seemed clear that the always-thin-eat-like-a-horse people had actually very effective internal mechanisms to say they’d had enough. Despite having yummy desserts on offer (one woman gave the example of wedding cake after a lunch), they just couldn’t bear eating more.
So I don’t think that they eat loads – they just eat until they can’t eat anymore, which is just at the right time to stop their intake being excessive. Frank is like this.
Whereas, pre-diet, I ate mostly for pleasure. It’s only been this last year that I’ve experienced proper hunger. I’d be like the kid in the programme in the nursery who, after a filling lunch, not only finished the cake and choccy biscuits brought out soon afterwards, but would also eat all the crumbs.
The only thing I felt hadn’t been tested enough is the idea of a natural weight (which might be under- or over-weight). I was consistently putting on weight year on year – does that mean that I hadn’t yet reached my natural weight? Instead, I think that 30 years of over-eating must form enough of a psychological habit that takes some time to break.
The increase in fat cells was really surprising and I wondered how this applied to Ginni’s son.
“My mum (and others) comment that when I’m eating I really focus on it, and really look at it, take it all in, really enjoy it.”
This is a characteristic of super-tasters. But I don’t think you’re a ‘fussy’ eater, are you?
Simon said,
30 January 2009 at 3:12 pm
I’m a super-taster. I like that label!
I used to be a fussy eater as a kid, not eating veggies much, with a predilection for spaghetti, cheese, bread, tomato soup, sunday lunches, chips, etc etc.
When I left home I (slowly) began discovering veg, and these days there’s not much veg I don’t (or won’t?) eat really. Though, having said that, I do still have to thinking about veg to consume it, I can happily live without it. Same with fruit, I still don’t eat much of that, more in summer, I’m a bit of a seasonal fruit eater.
Paola said,
30 January 2009 at 3:30 pm
@Simon, read the comments re: supertasters on Becky’s post from April.
Simon said,
30 January 2009 at 3:47 pm
Having done the quiz and examined my tongue, I can confirm I have above average fungiform papillae, and take the title of Supertaster as mine.
I can’t help wondering about how this relates to sex, but I feel that’s for quite a different blog…
Paola said,
30 January 2009 at 4:04 pm
Congratulations! You should get a t-shirt printed!
If bitterness is the issue, I suspect that knowing your newfound super status will help avoid/explore new foods.
Sylvia said,
30 January 2009 at 7:16 pm
I’m not going to watch this because right now I need to feel in control of my weight and focused on counting calories/exercising more regularly. I think anything that makes it feel like more of an uphill battle – or worse, has me feeling fatalistic about my weight – is going to be bad for my motivation.
That’s not to say I disagree with anything that I’ve heard about the show, just that for me right now, I don’t think it’ll be helpful.
The other day, someone saw a photograph of me from about eight years ago and said, “oh my god, is that Sylvia?” Recently someone else made a similar comment about a series of photos of me with Cliff, asking if the woman in the series was me. Now bear in mind none of them are over a decade old! It really brought home how much weight I’ve put on recently (I was not superskinny in any of the photos but clearly I was compared to now) and I’m feeling very motivated to undo what I’ve recently done. I want to ride that wave :)
Pewari said,
30 January 2009 at 7:48 pm
I could really relate to what they were talking about – I too found it hard to put on weight when I was younger and frustratingly, often got accused of being anorexic – I have never had an eating disorder, just a naturally small appetite and a disinterest in food.
I remember when my eldest son was young being in tears trying to force myself to eat bigger meals because of the midwife informing me that he was not gaining weight quick enough and, because I was breastfeeding, *I* needed to eat more calories to make him grow (which, incidentally, scientifically is bollocks. We were both obviously genetically slim).
Something, however, changed when I was pregnant with my second. I really enjoyed eating and had an appetite. I remember thinking how *nice* it was to really enjoy food and how much I’d miss it when I was no longer pregnant and no longer needed the extra calories. Something about my metabolic rate though got “stuck” and I haven’t really gone back – did my “ideal weight” change, did I increase my fat cells, did I catch that virus they were talking about? Dunno.
I just know that I managed to put on a stone in about six weeks over the summer and I’m only now starting to get that back under control, and I’m *still* stuck on a plateau getting rid of the final half stone (which even so, is still heavier than my pre-pregnancy weights).
For my health, I want to lose the weight, but there’s still part of me that is discovering the delights of food and doesn’t want to lose that again with it too…
Paola said,
30 January 2009 at 9:55 pm
I understand where you’re coming from, Sylvia.
I accept that I have an extra-large appetite (eagerness to eat as opposed to hunger). I can’t rely on it to consume the correct amount of food that my body needs. I will always have to consciously monitor my hunger and temper my eating accordingly.
Yes, it’s not fair and it’s a bugger that I’ll always want to eat more but I actually eat a lot nowadays – I don’t go hungry except late at night and that’s okay. I just make different food choices and make trade-offs. I wish I knew this 30 years ago.
Perhaps it *is* like being an alcoholic. But, whereas we don’t need alcohol to survive, we can’t eliminate food from our lives. We also live in a society where food and food-related events are promoted every day.
It’s a jungle out there.
:-)
Ginni said,
31 January 2009 at 2:56 am
I feel really left out !!!
I cannot watch this video no matter what I do. My pc has way too may securities on it, and IT restricts us on downloading videos due to virus scares.
Paola – would you mind burning me a CD on this? Please???!!!
I would love to watch this programme!!!
I think I am a foodaholic like Paola… does it run in our family genes? I see a lot of my first and second cousins, either skinny as a rake no matter what they eat or the other extreme…. I bet, I put on 2 lbs every time I glance at a chocolate !!