Could height be part of the reason for people gaining weight?

[BobbyJackson]

Something I was thinking about a bit, just a theory I was coming up with, was height privilege. I would assume that taller people are more lean on average because of their literal size, they require more calories. So that got me thinking if one of the issues of obesity (besides the usual suspects of PUFAs and whatnot) is actually that we're living in a society where food is more catered toward the average which is a growing height. So let's say you're average height or below average, your chances while living a normal life non-health focused life of staying slim are just so much lower. While if you are tall, your chances of staying slim are much higher because even with the crappy food going around, you just require so much more calories in general.

It just made me think of this concept that when you have a mixed height country where everyone is very mixed in terms of their height, you'd have more obesity. Or say, if short people moved to NL, they'd become more obese on average because the average Dutch person requires more calories so the country caters to that caloric intake more on average, particularly since it's a country that's not very mixed in general. I guess you could look at countries that have practically no immigrants or foreigners and have been stuck with the same people forever. Japan, South Korea, etc, they'd be less fat I think overall.

None of this of course is anything to do with how bad diets are and whatnot, tons of people's diets suck, regardless of height and weight. I just think that there must be some height privilege aspect to staying lean in this world of crap food.

 

[purple pill]

Something I was thinking about a bit, just a theory I was coming up with, was height privilege. I would assume that taller people are more lean on average because of their literal size, they require more calories. So that got me thinking if one of the issues of obesity (besides the usual suspects of PUFAs and whatnot) is actually that we're living in a society where food is more catered toward the average which is a growing height. So let's say you're average height or below average, your chances while living a normal life non-health focused life of staying slim are just so much lower. While if you are tall, your chances of staying slim are much higher because even with the crappy food going around, you just require so much more calories in general.

It just made me think of this concept that when you have a mixed height country where everyone is very mixed in terms of their height, you'd have more obesity. Or say, if short people moved to NL, they'd become more obese on average because the average Dutch person requires more calories so the country caters to that caloric intake more on average, particularly since it's a country that's not very mixed in general. I guess you could look at countries that have practically no immigrants or foreigners and have been stuck with the same people forever. Japan, South Korea, etc, they'd be less fat I think overall.

None of this of course is anything to do with how bad diets are and whatnot, tons of people's diets suck, regardless of height and weight. I just think that there must be some height privilege aspect to staying lean in this world of crap food.

My guess would be that tall slim people have always had good thyroid function, therefore faster metabolism.......reminds me of an interesting quote by Ray on experiments done with tadpoles

"...if you look at some of the old experiments in an aquarium with developing frog eggs, as soon as the eggs would hatch into tadpoles they would either add an antithyroid chemical or a little bit of a thyroid hormone to the water and if you added the antithyroid chemical the tadpole would never turn into a frog it would just get it to be a huge tadpole but if you added thyroid to the the aquarium the tiny hatchling tadpole would turn into a tiny spider-like frog, just about the size of a fly, showing that the thyroid, which energizes the cells so that they use oxygen and produce a huge amount of energy, this energy allows the cells to realize their function, but when it comes on too early, they neglect to grow."

 

[Peater]

height privilege

Give your head a wobble.

 

[sunny]

Height, body size, and longevity: is smaller better for the humanbody?

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Height, body size, and longevity: is smaller better for the humanbody?​

Thomas T Samaras1 and Harold Elrick2
Author information Copyright and License information PMC Disclaimer

​

Martel and Biller reported that the socially ideal height for western menis 188 cm (6 ft 2 in) andrising.1 Withadvances in genetic engineering, parents will be able to control the heightsof their children, and these heights are likely to increase with each newgeneration. Indeed, greater height and associated lean body mass are viewedpositively by the medical profession and society. This bias is based on a fewstudies and our cultural values but ignores extensive data that indicate thatshorter stature is healthier. We summarize our findings of more than 25 yearsof personal and literatureresearch.

 

[BobbyJackson]

Give your head a wobble.

It's obviously tongue in cheek lol. I'm not woke.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

My guess would be that tall slim people have always had good thyroid function, therefore faster metabolism.......reminds me of an interesting quote by Ray on experiments done with tadpoles

"...if you look at some of the old experiments in an aquarium with developing frog eggs, as soon as the eggs would hatch into tadpoles they would either add an antithyroid chemical or a little bit of a thyroid hormone to the water and if you added the antithyroid chemical the tadpole would never turn into a frog it would just get it to be a huge tadpole but if you added thyroid to the the aquarium the tiny hatchling tadpole would turn into a tiny spider-like frog, just about the size of a fly, showing that the thyroid, which energizes the cells so that they use oxygen and produce a huge amount of energy, this energy allows the cells to realize their function, but when it comes on too early, they neglect to grow."

This is fascinating!

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

Something I was thinking about a bit, just a theory I was coming up with, was height privilege. I would assume that taller people are more lean on average because of their literal size, they require more calories. So that got me thinking if one of the issues of obesity (besides the usual suspects of PUFAs and whatnot) is actually that we're living in a society where food is more catered toward the average which is a growing height. So let's say you're average height or below average, your chances while living a normal life non-health focused life of staying slim are just so much lower. While if you are tall, your chances of staying slim are much higher because even with the crappy food going around, you just require so much more calories in general.

It just made me think of this concept that when you have a mixed height country where everyone is very mixed in terms of their height, you'd have more obesity. Or say, if short people moved to NL, they'd become more obese on average because the average Dutch person requires more calories so the country caters to that caloric intake more on average, particularly since it's a country that's not very mixed in general. I guess you could look at countries that have practically no immigrants or foreigners and have been stuck with the same people forever. Japan, South Korea, etc, they'd be less fat I think overall.

None of this of course is anything to do with how bad diets are and whatnot, tons of people's diets suck, regardless of height and weight. I just think that there must be some height privilege aspect to staying lean in this world of crap food.

I think you may have a point, in that the “height privledged” ones need to eat more to maintain the extra they have going on, and given that portion sizes are basically a one size fits all, they probably in general get just the right portion or even not enough, while the same portion given to someone a foot shorter would be getting just the right amount or too much.

 

[BobbyJackson]

I think you may have a point, in that the “height privledged” ones need to eat more to maintain the extra they have going on, and given that portion sizes are basically a one size fits all, they probably in general get just the right portion or even not enough, while the same portion given to someone a foot shorter would be getting just the right amount or too much.

Exactly my point. If you live in a culture where the height, people and diet are homogenous then it'd make sense to me that their rates of obesity are much lower. I think that's clear when you look at hyper homogenous places like Japan and whatnot. I can then imagine how someone moving to NL where it's one of the tallest people in the world, the average calories consumed must be higher to maintain energy at such levels of height. If you are integrating into that culture as a shorter person, meaning you eat what they eat, you hang around with tall Dutch people etc, it makes sense to me that your odds of becoming obese increase because you're hanging around and integrating into a culture that has a higher average calorie intake than your average intake would allow for your height.

Of course there's ways to override this, we have free will, we can eat what we want. I'm talking more on a general population level basis of people who are not thinking much about what they eat and just following the trends of where they are and the people they're with. Then of course on that level people are going to become fatter, I think, as the environment they're in is catering to a much higher calorie requirement on average.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

Exactly my point. If you live in a culture where the height, people and diet are homogenous then it'd make sense to me that their rates of obesity are much lower. I think that's clear when you look at hyper homogenous places like Japan and whatnot. I can then imagine how someone moving to NL where it's one of the tallest people in the world, the average calories consumed must be higher to maintain energy at such levels of height. If you are integrating into that culture as a shorter person, meaning you eat what they eat, you hang around with tall Dutch people etc, it makes sense to me that your odds of becoming obese increase because you're hanging around and integrating into a culture that has a higher average calorie intake than your average intake would allow for your height.

Of course there's ways to override this, we have free will, we can eat what we want. I'm talking more on a general population level basis of people who are not thinking much about what they eat and just following the trends of where they are and the people they're with. Then of course on that level people are going to become fatter, I think, as the environment they're in is catering to a much higher calorie requirement on average.

I wrote a thread that runs parallel to yours here, on the Japanese diet and how there really is no mystery to it except they eat a lot less, and no wonder, to your point they are shorter people. I like your phrase “height privileged” because it doesn’t seem fair does it that taller people get to eat more without gaining weight, BUT in times of famine, survival and just plain wanting to save money on their food bill, the short people have the advantage. I love these kinds of random thoughts that I have never thought of before! You need to find me some more of these musings!

The Japanese Diet Mystery Solved!

"When rats were fed a diet completely lacking tryptophan for a short period, or a diet containing only one fourth of the “normal” amount for a more prolonged period, the results were surprising: They kept the ability to reproduce up to the age of 36 months (versus 17 months for the rats on the...

raypeatforum.com

 

[BobbyJackson]

I wrote a thread that runs parallel to yours here, on the Japanese diet and how there really is no mystery to it except they eat a lot less, and no wonder, to your point they are shorter people. I like your phrase “height privileged” because it doesn’t seem fair does it that taller people get to eat more without gaining weight, BUT in times of famine, survival and just plain wanting to save money on their food bill, the short people have the advantage.

The Japanese Diet Mystery Solved!

"When rats were fed a diet completely lacking tryptophan for a short period, or a diet containing only one fourth of the “normal” amount for a more prolonged period, the results were surprising: They kept the ability to reproduce up to the age of 36 months (versus 17 months for the rats on the...

raypeatforum.com

Indeed that makes sense to me. Of course they eat less, they are short! There's always extra factors too, like for example in NL they eat a ton of food that's fried in seed oils. So that's high calorie density, high PUFAs, etc. But they still remain fairly lean, particularly the taller people. Well, no wonder! They need so many calories it's easy for them to stay lean even while eating that crap, harming their metabolism and having such high caloric density in their foods!

Although it may be "unfair" in a sense, it wasn't my point. The point of using height privilege as a term was really more tongue-in-cheek. Of course, I would love to be height privileged and have nothing against it. Obviously I'm not complaining, I'm happy for them! If only my parents had been more dietarily wise to make me taller than the average for my country! I hope I can make my son height privileged by providing him with high quality protein like haidut has been suggesting is directly linked to your height! Who wouldn't want to have this privilege? Well, if you're in a famine, or perhaps the times when you need to travel cramped in a train or a plane and whatnot that are designed for the average height and not people taller than 6ft, then it'll suck.

 

[BobbyJackson]

I love these kinds of random thoughts that I have never thought of before! You need to find me some more of these musings!

The Japanese Diet Mystery Solved!

"When rats were fed a diet completely lacking tryptophan for a short period, or a diet containing only one fourth of the “normal” amount for a more prolonged period, the results were surprising: They kept the ability to reproduce up to the age of 36 months (versus 17 months for the rats on the...

raypeatforum.com

I'm always the type that comes up with seemingly random connections between different things

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

I'm always the type that comes up with seemingly random connections between different things

Me too! I had one recently waking up in the middle of the night, with a vast clear conception, that though we humans feel we are going through life forward that maybe time is not necessarily a direction and that maybe we are going backwards, starting old from death and going to a same starting place, ending up as babies. This would explain dejavus, and how the Bible says we will all have perfect bodies, and predestination, and on a sillier note, cherub babies, flying around with wings!

 

[BobbyJackson]

Me too! I had one recently waking up in the middle of the night, with a vast clear conception, that though we humans feel we are going through life forward that maybe time is not necessarily a direction and that maybe we are going backwards, starting old from death and going to a same starting place, ending up as babies. This would explain dejavus, and how the Bible says we will all have perfect bodies, and predestination, and on a sillier note, cherub babies, flying around with wings!

There's a good movie about that, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button! Although not quite the same concept as he's a person aging backwards in a normal world of people aging forwards.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

There's a good movie about that, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button! Although not quite the same concept as he's a person aging backwards in a normal world of people aging forwards.

I have not seen that movie, but is does explain a bunch, thinking outside the box of how we view time.

 

[BobbyJackson]

I have not seen that movie, but is does explain a bunch, thinking outside the box of how we view time.

Given what you just talked about you'll have to, it's a beautiful movie!