Fatness and intranational migration
In the comments, there is often talk about the fattening of America, yet I hardly see any fat white people in Manhattan. Thus I came up with the theory, this morning, that thin people are moving to Manhattan and other thin cities such as Washington, Boston, and San Francisco/Silicon Valley, leaving the fat people behind in the rest of the country. Those readers who live in the rest of the country are, therefore, getting the false impression that the population as a whole, is fatter than it really is.
There is also dysgenic breeding for fatness, because thin people in cities get married late, if at all, and have few children, while the fat proles in the rest of the country are a lot more fertile.
Yes the thin, the beautiful, and the smart tend to leave flyover for the coasts. And those of us from the coasts who are deficient move to flyover. The sorting works well generally but god these people are a bore.
Mrs Stitch
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
You do have a point, the better looking midwestern women leave for the coasts.
JS
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
Not all or even most. The Midwest, with its German and Scandinavian stock, has a deeper bench of pretty blondes than the coasts.
Dave Pinsen
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
Dave – Do you not read!
Many of the better looking girls of flyover leave for the coasts. Brooklyn for example, has a lot of cherub chicks from the Midwest, and so do some of the colleges here in NYC.
And I know from my encounters, that San Diego has a lot of midwestern female transplants.
JS
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
I read, but I’ve also travelled around the country and seen beautiful women working as sales clerks in Spokane, eating in McDonald’s in Oklahoma City, etc. They don’t all move to the coasts. Many have local roots and/or aren’t ambitious strivers.
Dave Pinsen
February 2, 2015 at EDT am
Dave – The Midwestern women in the midwest are generally less in shape, less healthy looking and not at all, as attractive as their transplant cohorts to places such as NYC.
I often get a lot of Midwestern chicks persuing my Linkedin profile, where it’s not in their best interest to do so. I have a feeling these women are looking to develop a connection with high status coastal men for careers and relationships, such that they could leave their one horse towns.
JS
February 2, 2015 at EDT pm
And it goes back to why America stinks as a nation, when comparing to Canada, and definitely Continental Europe. There is an inconsistency when it comes to cities. Most American cities suck is all I wanted to say. Most of them are boring nooks with slabs of overweight people in them.
JS
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
You could easily be replaced by a bot that leaves random comments about how the subject of any post sucks or is prole.
Dave Pinsen
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
But those random comments wouldn’t draw readership, because computers can’t craft unique messages, especially with the array of subject matter that is presented on this blog.
JS
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Your thickheadedness on this issue aside, statistics don’t lie.
JM
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
Those statistics are not broken down by race. New York has plenty of overweight blacks and Hispanics. And the “statistics” are combining all residents of New York STATE together. There rural parts of NY State do have lots of overweight white people.
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
Only the SWPL demographic in NYC remains to be thin (the proles, whether in the city or NYS in general, tend to be the lumbering types).
I’ve been to several high prole colleges/universities, and compared them to Columbia and NYU, and the prolier schools have larger, more robust women.
JS
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
Also, Lion, the most attractive women in NYC are the native Italian-Irish types from the local tristate area, who manage to keep themselves in shape.
JS
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
So has JS found her ethnic prole girlfriend yet. Maybe move together to her native homeland in Europe!
AsianDude
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
Manhattan has a relatively wealthy population, and relatively wealthy people are thin whether you live in Manhattan or Biloxi.
J1
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
This has nothing to do with wealth. A prole who wins the lottery will still be heavier than a poor college professor.
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
“A prole who wins the lottery will still be heavier than a poor college professor.”
Maybe not for long. True, they’d have far more money for gourmet food and expensive restaurant visits. But a lot of people are overweight at least partially because the fruits and vegetables you need to keep slim are relatively expensive. Also, diet programs like Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, and Medifast come with prepackaged food that is too expensive even for non-poor people on a long-term basis. When you’re wealthy, this isn’t a factor. And wealthy people can afford expensive gym memberships and personal trainers. They can also afford to “bribe” themselves with rewards for having lost weight (a new pair of boots for 3 pounds, an ipod for 10 , etc..)
Of course, if you just WANT to be a glutton then no amount of money will help you. And naturally, the wealthy have other problems to worry about that poor people don’t.
Maryk
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
“But a lot of people are overweight at least partially because the fruits and vegetables you need to keep slim are relatively expensive.”
Surely you don’t believe that nonsense? It’s less expensive to stay thin, just eat less.
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
@J1:
“Manhattan has a relatively wealthy population, and relatively wealthy people are thin whether you live in Manhattan or Biloxi.”
The correlate is IQ.
JayMan
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
As jayman wrote, a person genetically predisposed to being fat won’t become thinner if he comes into a lot money. People diet and they regain their weight until they hit their natural stable weight. The only thing that seems to work is to physically alter the body through gastro surgery.
grey enlightenment
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
@Maryk:
““A prole who wins the lottery will still be heavier than a poor college professor.”
Maybe not for long. True, they’d have far more money for gourmet food and expensive restaurant visits. But a lot of people are overweight at least partially because the fruits and vegetables you need to keep slim are relatively expensive.”
The “food desert” idea is horsepuckies.
JayMan
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
“A prole who wins the lottery will still be heavier than a poor college professor”
Initially perhaps, but a prole who wins the lottery will still attempt to conform to their social environment.
J1
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Maryk, fruits and vegetables don’t make you lose weight:
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2014/06/25/ajcn.114.090548
Exercise doesn’t necessarily help either as it triggers greater conscious and unconscious desires for food.
slithy toves
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
relatively wealthy [sic] people are thin…er, thinner.
everyone has gotten fatter just some groups more than others.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
@JS: the most attractive women in NYC are the native Italian-Irish types
Like MaryK!
E. Rekshun
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
My state of Indiana has a relatively low level of obesity on this chart among younger people. We have a lot of recent first generation immigrants. They still eat their native ethnic cuisines which are much healthier than the American fast food diet. Many work physically demanding jobs. They also walk more. They are always strolling around the parks and shopping malls. A few generations from now their grandchildren will eat at McDonalds, be on welfare or in some physically undemanding affirmative action government office job, go everywhere in a car and be bloated and obese like most of the older native Hoosiers. I’m an older native Hoosier and at 170 pounds I’m always being called “skinny” by others my age.
Mark
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
“We have a lot of recent first generation immigrants… A few generations from now their grandchildren will eat at McDonalds, be on welfare or in some physically undemanding affirmative action government office job, go everywhere in a car and be bloated and obese like most of the older native Hoosiers.”
A few generations? That takes one generation.
peterike
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
one of the reasons why Europeans are thinner than Mercans is the high price of gas in Europe.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
one of the reasons why Europeans are thinner than Mercans is the high price of gas in Europe.
Products and services are more expensive in Europe.
More expensive attracts less undesirables!
JS
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
Alabama and Mississippi have lots of fat African-Americans. I’m not sure why Kentucky does.
CamelCaseRob
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Kentucky is 86% White, which makes it Whiter than Massachusetts. Kentucky I believe does have the second largest concentration of underclass Whites in any state though. (West Virginia takes the #1 spot for White proleness)
SC
February 2, 2015 at EDT am
Your thickheadedness on this issue aside, statistics don’t lie.
Lion’s anecdotal observations always trump scientific facts.
The Undiscovered Jew
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Deceptive “statistics” are not scientific facts. As a famous American once said, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
“statistics” are not scientific facts.
Which is why The Lion never quotes statistics that happen to support his arguments in his patented “The Lion was Right…” entries.
The Undiscovered Jew
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
@MaryK: And naturally, the wealthy have other problems to worry about that poor people don’t.
Like avoiding poor people, NAMs, and taxes.
E. Rekshun
January 31, 2015 at EDT am
anon
February 1, 2015 at EDT am
Title didn’t come through– it should read:
Animated map showing US adult obesity levels, 1985-2010 [CDC]
I believe JM’s map above includes those overweight (BMI 25-30) or obese (BMI 30+).
anon
February 1, 2015 at EDT am
The most ambitious people go to big cities and if you have the least bit of ambition or self control, you can control your appetite. So the patterns we see are obvious. But I think you’re underestimating the obesity problem by only focusing on whites in big cities.
Hepp
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
NYC is the only big city in America that draws the most ambitious and best looking (LA doesn’t, just dumb Hollywood wannabes). If you take a walk on Park Avenue, you will notice the men (the Wall St types) tend to be in shape and are the best looking in the city. Make no mistake, being good looking does help getting a prestigious value transference job immensely, not afforded to guys who are less, even with stellar credentials.
JS
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Is there evidence that fat people have more kids, independent of the correlation between fertility and obesity via ethnicity/race?
Also, as a man I notice fat women and a lot more than fat men, and having children is often a cause of weight gain in younger women. This means that we our perception of fat people having kids will be even more skewed. I think this is a case where our intuitions could turn out to be really wrong if we look at the data.
zz
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
@zz:
“Is there evidence that fat people have more kids, independent of the correlation between fertility and obesity via ethnicity/race?”
We don’t know how obesity is correlated to fertility since such information primarily comes from fertility clinics! Hardly a representative slice of the population.
JayMan
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Just off the top of my head, but I would guess that New York City, as one of the most competitive dating markets in the world, force singles to constantly up their game and stay at their peak attractiveness as long as possible.
But a country girl can get married out of high school, put a little meat on her bones, and it’s too late for the guy to do anything. He’s stuck.
Mike Street Station
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
* Yes, and being a less physically attractive man in NYC is really a bad bad thing, because attractive females are abound like bees, who are foraging for the best male specimens they can find. Inversely, SF would be the NYC, where a sausage fest of ugly men are looking for a female gem among a barren land of women.
JS
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
Years ago I wanted badly to move to SF but figured what’s the use when so many guys there are gay.
Mrs Stitch
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Manhattan is thin and everywhere else is fat. It’s true.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/bronxs-weight-is-up-and-manhattans-is-down/?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/nyregion/23slim.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/nyregion/22fat.html
Fatness is a social thing. In Japan, where mothers will gleefully ridicule their own daughters for an pound of weight gain, everyone is thin and they live the longest of any country, despite all the smoking and overwork.
If you want to give someone the gift of a long life, insult their fatness with all the meanness you can muster.
Dan
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
@Dan:
“Fatness is a social thing. In Japan, where mothers will gleefully ridicule their own daughters for an pound of weight gain, everyone is thin and they live the longest of any country, despite all the smoking and overwork.
If you want to give someone the gift of a long life, insult their fatness with all the meanness you can muster.”
You do realize that’s complete horsepoo right? See my page a few comments down.
JayMan
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Dan is right. the problem is tolerance. the French don’t tolerate fat either. French men weigh themselves every day, or so i’ve heard,
Jayman again demonstrates that he doesn’t understand what h^2 means.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Fat is very closely connected with class, and only higher-class white people live or work in Manhattan.
thrasymachus33308
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
You’ve lost perspective living in Manhattan. Whites in Manhattan are going to be more affluent, educated, self centered and image obsessed than whites elsewhere. Here on SI there is no deficit of obesity in any race. People are so ginormous here it boggles the mind. I don’t mean just a bit overweight, but so large they can barely walk.
However the ideal body weight is probably the high end of “normal BMI” or the low end of “overweight BMI.” Indigenous tribesmen & women in jungles are neither fat nor thin but somewhere in between.
slithy toves
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
Of course proles in Staten Island are going to be fatter than Bobos in Manhattan.
Plus guido males have higher BMI because of their bulked up muscles.
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
There are a lot of thin, and gorgeous, russian women here.
slithy toves
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Plus guido males have higher BMI because of their bulked up muscles.
But they have skinny legs; “how much you bench?”
E. Rekshun
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
In this post, there is talk about the lack of fattening of America, yet I hardly see any skinny white people in fly over states. Thus I came up with the theory, this morning, that thin people are moving to Manhattan and other thin cities such as Washington, Boston, and San Francisco/Silicon Valley, leaving the fat people behind in the rest of the country. The blogger, who lives in one of the only cities skinny white people want to live, therefore, is getting the false impression that the population as a whole, is skinnier than it really is.
theoak
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
Those maps are mindblowing. How could such change occur in 20 yrs? A sudden loss of moral fibre and discline? I doubt it, American culture has not changed.
If someone claimed it’s something in the water, that would sound plausible. It can’t be we all turned into glutton virtually overnight. Some other factor, or factors are at play.
The seeming immunity of coastal city types may be due to walk ability at least in the east where much exercise is involuntarily done in the course of one,s day. Self selection must also be at play –if you’re fat you know your employment options there will not improve.
newyorker
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
“How could such change occur in 20 yrs? A sudden loss of moral fibre and discline? I doubt it, American culture has not changed.”
Immigration and industrialized food. People born in the 80s basically grew up eating industrial junk, which wrecks havoc with your biology. Corn syrup, franken-fats, anything you eat out of a box: it’s all poison. The massive over-use of antibiotics may be a part, too, as children are hugely overdosed with antibiotics and this disrupts intestinal flora.
PS – If you have digestive problems — by which I mean poo problems — look up “resistant starch” and give it a whirl. It’s like a magic bullet for your flora.
peterike
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Here are my theories.
1) heavy people can have obesity related diseases treated so they stay alive and can have children, giving their obesity prone genes to their children
2) the loss of formal family meals which leads to random eating and snacking at all hours
3) food tastes better these days; packaged and chain foods have an incredible amount of research funneled into them to make them irresistible (called “the bliss point” in the field), foodie-ism is on the rise, and information between various ethnic cuisines is widely available and fused to make ever-tastier dishes
slithy toves
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
“that thin people are moving to Manhattan”
And all the cool parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Yes, NYC is Thinlandia for whites and Asians. Which is why there’s a yoga studio on every single block in the good parts of Brooklyn. Sometimes I think half the white women in New York make a living being yoga instructors or personal trainers. And SWPL-wise, assimilated Asian women are no different than white women.
This is why New York is a great dating market for middle aged men. There are TONS of shapely 30, 40 and 50-something women. Those of us without enough game to snag 20-somethings still have a huge pool of attractive older women to pick from. This is much less the case in other cities where the competition isn’t as fierce and Darwinian as it is in New York. Simply put, an overweight 40 year old single woman in New York is doomed from a dating perspective. And the married ones have to stay hot for their husbands because they know damn well their husband interacts with fifty pretty women a day.
peterike
January 30, 2015 at EDT am
Asian women are for beta men and the rest of the male population, whom you disregard as invaders.
JS
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Slightly O/T – I think the ousting of the former Mickey Dees’ CEO, who happened to be the type, who would chow down on disgusting corporate burgers and fries, with the rest of his ghetto black cohorts is something what liberals would celebrate on. An uncle tom personality, who wanted to deprolify McDonald’s with its junk food for more healtier menu options, is let go for a Whitey CEO (are the liberals complaining about this), who wants the Big Yellow M to return to its former glory, which is stuffing proles with its unhealthy garbage that enlarges their guts.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/mcdonalds-franchisees-to-new-ceo-back-to-basics-fast/ar-AA8Le8G?ocid=mailsignout
JS
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
The problem at McDonald’s isn’t the healthiness or unhealthiness of its food but its mediocrity. If I were its CEO, I’d take a page from Wendy’s. A few years ago, Wendy’s upgraded all of its burgers: better buns, better meat, and so on. McDonald’s still serves dry, hockey puck burgers, but upgraded the buns on just one burger, its Bacon Club. Not enough.
The second thing I’d do as CEO is trash those disgusting baked pies and go back to the deep fried apple pies McD’s served in the ’80s. Those were delicious.
The third thing I’d do is eliminate the bottom half of the menu and focus on the more popular items. Quality over quantity.
Dave Pinsen
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
The problem at McDonald’s isn’t the healthiness or unhealthiness of its food but its mediocrity.
I haven’t eaten at McDonalds in over twenty years, but, as I recall, it’s the service and the customers that are mediocre.
E. Rekshun
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Wendy’s is marketed toward adults. McDonald’s is marketed toward kids. Bleu cheeseburgers on Ciabata bread is not going to fly over with parents who want something quick for the kids to eat.
The biggest problem with McDonalds is that it succumbed to all the food propaganda thrown at it over the years. it altered its food from the really tasty fare it had before to the bland menu they have today, with weird salad options and other nonsense that there is no point in eating in a place like McDonalds.
Had they ignored the voices yelling at hysterical mothers, they would be in much better shape today. Instead, they listened to people who think Panera, Corner Bakery and Subway are healthy.
Their CEO was a disaster. Remember, this is the guy who wanted chicken wings as a menu option. McDonald’s board bet on a minority and lost. They are making another bad bet on the Brit, under the theory that foreign must mean smart, when all it really means is a dumb accent.
map
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
If you haven’t eaten at one in 20 years, you wouldn’t know, but the service and customers vary geographically. You’ll see different customers and different service in different places. What’s common (within the US) is the mediocre food. Five Guys, Shake Shack, etc., put that into sharper relief.
Dave Pinsen
January 31, 2015 at EDT am
if it isn’t 100% grass fed on a 100% whole wheat bun with grainy mustard and no ketchup and lots of lettuce and onions, it’s prole.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe
January 31, 2015 at EDT am
@ map
Great comment.
eradican
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
@ Mugabe –
A hamburger or cheeseburger is prole under all circumstances. The quality of the beef and the choice of condiments can help to make it tasty, but they can’t eliminate the proleness.
nebbish
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
One thing I’ve noticed recently is that upscale Manhattan restaurants (with the exception of comfort places like McNally’s restaurants such as Balthazar) tend to be relatively low carb.
Dave Pinsen
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Generally true, though any proper tasting menu now comes with a bread course! And Italian restaurants, even the high end ones, will be a bit more carby because they’ll focus more on pasta dishes.
peterike
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
True about the italian places.
Dave Pinsen
January 31, 2015 at EDT am
Urban white women (and men) are adopting low carb diets. Unfortunately flyover white women still haven’t gotten the word low carb is the way to go. Are there any Bible quotes Evangelical preachers can use to preach high fat dieting?
The Undiscovered Jew
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Yeah they’re not getting the low carb thing here in flyover. I can stand to eat a little carb with my coffee now and then, but lately vendors sell only the hugest, most sugary donuts, danish and gigantic bagels. No such thing as a small bran muffin or plain normal sized bagel anymore. It’s all or nothing, got to be the worst thing in the world or it’s not worth eating. That’s the fatties’ demand talking.
Mrs Stitch
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
Most Evangelical preachers are more concerned with saving people’s souls than saving people’s physiques. I have literally heard from a White prole woman when I was in Texas that “God doesn’t care about how you look. God cares about the content of your character.”
SC
February 2, 2015 at EDT pm
Interesting.
I predict low carb/paleo-ish nutrition thinking will be mainstream in the future if the NYC trendsetters are pushing it.
It’s an improvement from the USDA food pyramid. Even though macronutrient ratio ain’t the problem, it’s the addictive properties of GMO wheat and sugar, which happen to be carbs.
HBD observation: Populations that have a shorter time period of adaptation to agricultural foods (NAMs) suffer more from obesity and diet-related health conditions like high blood pressure. Same reason people of Northern European descent are more prone to alcoholism than people whose ancestors came from the Mediterranean.
Rodolphe Boulanger
January 31, 2015 at EDT am
they’re not getting the low carb thing here in flyover.
It’ll take time for word about high fat/low carb to reach flyover country, but it will get there. Young, white flyover girls may already be adopting it, but at a slower rate than urban SWPL and yuppie girls; at least judging by how their waistlines have notably shrunk over the past three years.
I predict low carb/paleo-ish nutrition thinking will be mainstream in the future if the NYC trendsetters are pushing it.
I forgot to add that SWPLs don’t call their low carb diet low carb.
They refer to their diets with names that differentiate them from Atkins (which is considered prole). “Gluten free”, Dukan, and Mediterranean are preferred. But they all follow the underlying formula Atkins established decades ago, with moderate deviations put there for marketing’s sake: Gluten free allows rice, Dukan talks up meat over fat, Mediterranean emphasizes monounsaturated fats over saturated. Don’t be fooled. They’re basically the same diet.
HBD observation: Populations that have a shorter time period of adaptation to agricultural foods (NAMs) suffer more from obesity and diet-related health conditions like high blood pressure.
True enough. But NAM women’s bodies are still chunky and gross even if they go low carb. Hispanic women in particular are round no matter how much weight they lose.
What’s important is what diet attractive white women practice because they have the best physical features of any race and therefore have the most incentive to maintain their genetically inherent beauty. Presumably white women can handle more carbs (up to a point…) because whites are used to a grain based diet. But low carb is universally effective.
The Undiscovered Jew
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
TUJ – You need to drum into peterike’s head several times, that Asian women are not worth his time!
JS
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
Also, I have come across some stunning Hispanic, Iranian and Hindu women.
JS
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
As soon I as left Manhattan for inner America, I gained weight. In NYC people walk everywhere AND often go to the gym (as I did). Now I just exercise a 3-4 times per week and drive everywhere. And I eat more bacon and burgers than I ever did in NYC. I love beer, and this catches up with you as you age.
I do notice that people are fatter in Fly Over Country. I often see young women who are chubby in their early twenties(!). In my opinion they carry it well…but maybe as an older guy I see youth as beautiful.
SWPL2
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Another reason for love handles, a lack of food options in most American cities. Unlike NYC, with its fine and varied dining, the majority of American cities hosts a number of corporate vomit eateries, in just about every street block, carbon copies of the one opposite of it.
JS
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
I spent a couple of years in Kansas City in the early ’00s, and found the women noticeably heavier, less feminine, and poorly dressed as compared to east coast city women.
E. Rekshun
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
It’s getting better in kc though. I think it’s more progressive here than most of the Midwest.
Maybe that’s just because my girl is a yoga teacher though…
Ndo
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
Ladies and gentlemen, there is one source you all need to read on the topic:
Obesity Facts | JayMan’s Blog
JayMan
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
The key to his page is that BMI has the same degree of heritability as intelligence.
Thus distribution of fatness is explained by intranational migration and dysgenic breading and immigration.
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
“Intranational” is a polysyllabic mouthful. Why not “domestic” instead?
Dave Pinsen
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
This is true; the genetic factor for weight is, interestingly, about the same as that for IQ, in the 70-80% range.
However, as far as dysgenic breeding, I’m not sure this is clear cut as attractive women are more likely to have children, and more children, than unattractive women (attractive women are also more likely to have daughters). What does hold is that obesity related diseases and associated pregnancy risks in women can now be effectively managed and treated in way that could not have been several generations ago, i.e. obese people can successfully reproduce at a higher rate. This is probably one factor in rising obesity rates since the 1970s.
slithy toves
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Of course bmi is hereditary, but like stature, will not be expressed fully in a less than optimum rnvironment. Could it be that the reason so many are fat is the same reason that we are taller than our immediate sncestors? Look at Koreans here in flushing whO tower over their immigrant parents.
Look at Mexicans who are hardly working cubicle jobs. And yet they can never be described as thin. It’s all in the genes working in an environment of abundance.
newyorker
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
There are lots of pregnant fat girls in flyover. It’s the easiest thing for them to do, to get knocked up by some NAM or drunk prole, then get EIC and other tax credits. And boy they know it too.
Mrs Stitch
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
which is actually very strong evidence against HBD, as BMI is, with very rare exceptions, 100% environmental.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
as attractive women are more likely to have children, and more children, than unattractive women…
the opposite of the truth. but who needs facts when you’ve got truthiness?
http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(09)00027-0/abstract?cc=y
Robert Gabriel Mugabe
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Mrs Stitch, I just bought a few tomes of collectible books, with my EIC I just got back from my tax filing. Proles would spend it on cheap booze and other non-SWPL items.
JS
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
If you take in less calories than you burn, you will lose weight. If you exercise during the process of doing so, you will optimize your bodyfat percentage and musculature. These are facts.
When someone denied motion, Diogenes got up and walked away
swanknasty
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
@swanknasty:
If that happens, sure, you will. The problem is that’s not really an informative statement. (It’s not as easy as it sounds):
Fat Head » Toilet Humor And The HOW vs. WHY Of Getting Fat
The Physics Diet? | Slate Star Codex
JayMan
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
indeed but there are some very very…very rare exceptions.
namely, there are some who can store fat, but can’t use it.
given the high h^2 of adiposity and blood pressure and other physical traits which are known to be very malleable one wonders if IQ is the same way.
as Swank has said elsewhere, regarding the IQ phenotype, “intelligent is something you become not something you just are.”
there are hereditists, but there are no “environmentalists”. not any more. no Skinner-tards. and the very idea of a nature-nurture argument depends on the additive model P = G + E which is ridiculous.
Jorge Videla
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
Please do not point me to sources which used studies that relied heavily on self-report for ‘dietary results.’ When people are kept honest this diet will work. The fact that extreme differences in metabolism amount to 790 calories per day says that the ‘different metabolism’ excuse is a myth. And so it goes for my thoughts on ‘differences in appetite.’ Are there differences? Sure. Yet, when we observe the extreme differences, they end up being fairly insignificant.
These traits could not have changed a lot in the last 50 years anyway. Just because a trend isdoes not mean that trend is innate, immalleable, etc.
swanknasty
February 2, 2015 at EDT am
“Those readers who live in the rest of the country are, therefore, getting the false impression that the population as a whole, is fatter than it really is.”
Looking at overall state averages gets around much of that.
JayMan
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
This thread has caused me to start looking for fatties in SF. Today at TJ’s, 2 of 7 cashiers are obese, and the manager too, an asian.
dabney
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Proles are fat because they work low status jobs. Eating feels good and is one of the few pleasures they can enjoy. It’s why all these fitness/nutrition programs always fail.
eradican
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Yes, and obesity wasn’t so widespread when smoking was more prevalent and acceptable.
Christine
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Yeah, old time proles were often wiry people who smoked and drank as a meal.
Genetic disposition + massive carbs = fat.
Rifleman
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
@Jorge
Your example of the Pima and obesity actually demonstrates the reality of human biological diversity.
A population with no evolutionary adaptation to agricultural foods doesn’t handle them as well as a population that has a long history of exposure to them.
Rodolphe Boulanger
January 31, 2015 at EDT am
not really. the contentions of HBD and hereditism are:
1. genes have an independent effect on human behavior/psychological traits, including adiposity.
2. this independent effect is dominant.
these contentions are true within any sufficiently narrow range of environments, but for the full range of human environments contemporary and historical it is laughable. it’s pure idiocy.
and regarding IQ the most heritable of psychological traits there is dispositive evidence that genes have no independent effect.
that evidence is the negligible heritability of some IQ battery subtests for dichorionic MZ twins raised together.
Jorge Videla
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
there is only one gene/behavior association which has been repeated, and this association only obtains if the carrier has a certain unusual childhood environment. the gene is named “the warrior gene” iirc. all other gene psychological trait associations have failed replication for 30+ years.
that is, the “warrior gene” has no independent effect at all.
Jorge Videla
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
these contentions are true within any sufficiently narrow range of environments, but for the full range of human environments contemporary and historical it is laughable. it’s pure idiocy.
This is nonsense. Down’s Syndrome, Turner’s Syndrome, William’s Syndrome, & Fragile X are all examples of genetic conditions with independent effects on IQ. Where are the environments where Down’s Syndrome doesn’t lower IQ? Where are the environments where women have better spatial ability than men or where Turner Syndrome women have better spatial ability than normal women? They don’t exist.
Further, there are huge regions of the world full of vastly different cultures where people have been technogically behind for over 20,000 years despite massive changes in culture during that time.
HBD denial is pure pseudoscience.
pumpkinperson
February 1, 2015 at EDT am
that’s right pp. but everyone knows that, and it has no bearing at all on HBD or herditism.
now after 30+ years of trying the latest and final iteration of hereditism is
many genes of small effect.
by “many” is meant thousands and perhaps the entire genome.
the mentally retarded phenotype associated always with certain gross genetic abnormalities is simply irrelevant. it’s not even apples and oranges. it’s door knobs and oranges.
as Swank has commented before evolution over the last 50k years has selected against retarded…and that’s all. there’s simply no comparing home erectus or australopithecus or any non-human animal to modern humans either.
Jorge Videla
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
so supposing Shoe et al came up with a formula which predicted IQ fairly well from genotype. (this would be an “effect size vector”, and its dot product with the genome vector would give you the predicted phenotype.)
ok?
now suppose they applied it to dichorionic MZ twins.
oops!
Jorge Videla
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
What this research suggests is that sharing the same chorion and placenta causes identical twins to be more similar in some traits, but more different in others, depending on how the attributes in question are influenced by specific aspects of gestation. Shared hormones, for instance, appear to increase resemblances in personality, whereas a shared blood supply appears to create disparities in fetal growth and various correlated traits. With regard to overall intelligence and most other cognitive measures, such contrasting influences appear to counterbalance one another, resulting in few demonstrable differences between monochorionic and dichorionic twins in IQ (and hence in the calculation of the extent to which IQ is inherited).
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/oct/25/how-to-inherit-iq-the-fetal-question/
pumpkinperson
February 2, 2015 at EDT am
neither “it’s their fault” nor “it’s not their fault” is right.
stupid people eat shit even when they can eat healthfully. but these same stupid people didn’t used to be fat.
in the documentary Harlan County USA about a coal miners strike in Eastern KY in the 70s, no one is fat. i’d bet the descendants of those people are fat. and with the Flynn effect they likely have higher IQs than their grandparents.
the obesity epidemic + the high heritability of adiposity = all of HBD must be taken with a grain of salt…because the increase in obesity can’t be explained by a change frequency of “fat genes”.
another example of how dumb HBDers are:
They [sc. the Pima] have the highest prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the world, much more than is observed in other U.S. populations…The general increased diabetes prevalence among Native Americans has been hypothesized as the result of the interaction of genetic predisposition and a sudden shift in diet from traditional agricultural goods towards processed foods in the past century. For comparison, genetically similar O’odham in Mexico have only a slighter higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes than non-O’odham Mexicans.
Jorge Videla
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Lion I meant to reply to this comment, not to post the same comment twice.
I originally posted:
@Jorge
Your example of the Pima and obesity actually demonstrates the reality of human biological diversity.
A population with no evolutionary adaptation to agricultural foods doesn’t handle them as well as a population that has a long history of exposure to them.
I’ll add:
The Pima show that people with identical genes can have totally different real-world outcomes due to environmental factors. So the Pima eating a hunter-gatherer diet are 100% fit and healthy. They didn’t inherit a predisposition to obesity. So you are right that spergy HBD types like Jayman are idiots.
Rodolphe Boulanger
January 31, 2015 at EDT am
Note that Colorado has the lowest obesity rate. Definitely not on the coast.
That said, go to Walmart in, say, Aurora and you’re almost guaranteed to at least on person so fat they use a motorized shopping cart. Boulder Whole Foods, less so.
ModernReader
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
California is full of high-BMI Mexican immigrants.
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Colorado has a low obesity rate cause of all the SWPLs who no longer want to live on the coasts. In fact, Colorado is one of the few flyover states deemed to be livable by high class White people.
SC
February 2, 2015 at EDT pm
The fattest countries are the US, England, and Mexico. All of whom have incredible wealth inequality.
Kant
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
they also have the highest rates of psychiatric diagnoses. 25% of Americans and Brits are officially crazy. and the craziest population in the US? Mormon wives! seriously! this demonstrates the ideological function of psychiatry. it’s not the system. it’s you. just take a pill or two or nine. italy has high inequality but low rates of psychiatric diagnoses. must be HBD again, right ;)?
Robert Gabriel Mugabe
January 31, 2015 at EDT am
Some of the meds they get put on make them gain weight too. And you know, everyone must have a med or three.
Mrs Stitch
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
Correct, mental illness in the USA and the UK is astounding, better known as the anglo-psycho-ward.
Further, these countries will evolve into a sausage fest of angryphonic men, who can’t get any!
JS
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
Am I the only one who is skeptical of these people who “exercise”?
It’s striving…
I mean, jesus, go for a walk after dinner while you smoke a cigar, ride your motorcycle on a weekend trip, go hiking with your friends if you like mountains….and maybe you will indirectly be fitter….but go into a small room with treadmills where you can run on them like a rat while you inhale sweaty steamy swampy stale air that just evaporated off some SWPL’s asscrack? Spare me.
Exercise is disgusting. Only proles in denial need to “work out” to fight their genetic predisposition towards obesity. It’s the disease of narcissism over substance. We don’t need to be actual real interesting people, we simply need to appear to be so, and we are. When I see a person with bulging muscles or toned thighs first I think “oh, they look nice” but then “how depressing they spend all that time in the gym.”
I will admit I am biased as exercise causes me lots of pain and requires a lot of effort, which I think is true for a significant minority of people. But it’s hard not to think of someone as a braindead prole when I know they spent 100’s and 1000’s of hours just picking up the weights and putting them down…for what purpose? It’s boring. Everyone does it. It’s conformist. Oh look, another SWPL who jogs and recycles…how interesting.
jjbees
January 30, 2015 at EDT pm
Running on treadmills sucks, particularly if you are heavy, but lifting doesn’t suck. And it’s better for you: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2014/01/29/strength-vs-endurance-why-you-are-wasting-your-time-in-the-gym/?singlepage=true
Dave Pinsen
January 31, 2015 at EDT am
running on a treadmill is the only way i can run without my acls hurting. better still is strength + aerobic exercise. and most muscle heads totally ignore their legs and buttocks which atrophy twice as fast as the upper body.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe
January 31, 2015 at EDT am
No one doing Starting Strength, Strong Lifts, Wendler, or similar barbell approaches ignores his legs and buttocks; squats figure prominently in all of them.
Dave Pinsen
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
If you’re a prole, just smoke and hit the booze and coffee hard. The pounds will fall off.
For those of you who wish to be more delicate with your bodies’ future condition while becoming less of a fat slob, I recommend a combination of caffeine pills, nicotine patches, carb and fat blockers, capsacin, and early morning high-intensity runs (not jogging).
Also, big muscles are enormously proletarian and have been for centuries. Another “only in America” item.
Negro of the Bongosphere (formerly Viscount Douchenozzlé)
January 31, 2015 at EDT am
Strength sports (power lifting and strong man stuff) are actually more popular in Northern Europe than the US.
Dave Pinsen
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
You’ll notice I said “proletarian”, not “popular”.
Negro of the Bongosphere (formerly Viscount Douchenozzlé)
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
Running is very high-impact and will eventually destroy your feet and/or joints, and I would know, having basically destroyed my left foot running marathons in college. Cycling is a better bet for long-term exercise and even better if you can get your work commute in at the same time.
Negro of the Bongosphere (formerly Viscount Douchenozzlé)
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
it all depends on how much you run. if you run only enough to maintain the ability to run a sub 6 m mile, then it’s all good.
in general fitness and health are indistinguishable.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
Many modern nerds would be served well by spending more time exercising and strength training than hash-rehash-trihashing MRA/red-pill/psychobabble/HBD/whatever.
You don’t need to spend much time in the gym to have a fit, muscular, lean body. Maybe 40 minutes, four days a week. Really I just run a mile as fast as I can, then lift, then leave.
Then again, many people are phenomenally lazy.
swanknasty
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
“You don’t need to spend much time in the gym to have a fit, muscular, lean body.”
That depends upon what genes you have.
Lion of the Blogosphere
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
I’m the same weight as I was in 1999; same annual salary as well!
E. Rekshun
January 31, 2015 at EDT am
but how much muscle have you lost?
if you can stand it, look at old people’s bodies.
this is what you’ll notice:
1. muscle atrophy, especially in legs and buttocks.
2. accumulation of fat.
the squat is the hardest exercise there is next to Olympic weight lifting. it’s a general rule with many exceptions that the harder it is, whatever it is, the better it is for you.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
Ha yes, I’m guessing the coasts are the only places where MEN worry about the thigh gap. And it’s not only fashionable to be uber-skinny and not fat, but to be uber-skinny and not all muscled out either. Funny too how in this way the SWPL is almost by accident racist, because thick body types disproportionately come down on black and Hispanic women.
Was watching the show Big Women: Big Love recently (as if this were an accident for something; yea right, I watch it religiously) and a black cast member who lives in Brooklyn expressed how she loved “skinny white guys.” Oh but of course she does.
mupetblast
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
Never heard of Big Women: Big Love until reading the comment.
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
Squatting/deadlifting starting strength type workouts are for SWPLs.
jjbees
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
whoever lifts weights and doesn’t do more squats than anything else is a wimp.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe
January 31, 2015 at EDT pm
It is cross-breading that causes fatness. It returns us to where we evolved from. Long time ago people needed to store lots of fat in case something happens to food source. Mixing genes gets us back where we where.
MyTwoCents
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
It is strange – why obesity is increasing. What is the main factor..
ModernReader
February 1, 2015 at EDT pm
tolerance.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe
February 2, 2015 at EDT am
1. Something I once heard in the 3rd World: “You’ll never see a fat begger.”
2. All these fat people: Have they ever embarked on a 6-month long program of strength+aerobic training, 4x40minutes per week? How about a 1200 calorie diet for six months? The reason people cannot do this is the reason they’re fat.
1%erbrowngirl
February 2, 2015 at EDT am