Are You Born To Be Fat?
GENES FOR MORE FAT CELLS
FAT CELLS UNDER CONTROL

“Betty can eat anything and not gain an ounce! I hate her!”

Everyone knows someone like Betty. She is the one at the bridge party who arrives looking slim and elegant, and then proceeds to eat the sandwiches, bridge mix, nuts and anything else that the hostess has to offer. Everyone else is self-consciously turning down anything caloric and opting, instead, for the no-cal seltzer.

Betty leaves the table to powder her nose and, as soon as she is out of earshot, the complaining begins.

“How does she do it? I’d be embarrassed to eat a tenth of what she just put away.”

“I’ve been on a diet for two weeks and I haven’t lost announce. But I swear to you, Betty looks as if she’s thinner this week.”

“Don’t you wish you had her genes?”

Freeze Frame! Stop the Action!

How often have you heard that question? How often have you said that the reason that some people are thin is because of their genes? And how often has someone shot back with the remark, “why don’t you just zip up your mouth and stop eating. People are fat because they eat too much!”

Well, maybe that observation is only half wrong.

A scientific study completed in Denmark suggests that some people are born with more fat cells than others. This means that they have more storage capacity for holding on to fat and growing fat, or adipose tissue, than others. If this is so, consider that four women at the bridge party.

As a group, they exercise together, play tennis together and meet daily for lunch. Of the four, only Betty remains thin without having to count calories. The others notice that, despite their wholesome habit of daily exercise, when they eat as much as Betty does, they gain weight. They have gradually come to realize that Betty is different in a number of ways:

1. Her natural metabolic rate is higher than theirs so that, even when she skips exercise, she continues to burn up calories. They, on the other hand, become sluggish without exercise, their metabolic rates returning to so low a level that eating “normally” causes them to put on weight.

2. Her body frame is narrow, evidence of an ectomorphic body type, and there has always been very little fat on her. They, on the other hand, are large framed with broad hips that have always had considerable body fat which, with great effort, remains minimally evident.

Whether Betty’s friends know it or not, they have adopted ideal eating behavior. True, they will continue to envy Betty for not having to care about calories or exercise or overeating. But they have their fat cells under control. They exercise daily, thus raising their metabolic rates to burn up more calories, and are eating sensibly and only when they are physically hungry. At times they speak of Jane, a former bridge partner who, like them, had all kinds of issues with food and experienced the same jealousy of Betty, but who had lost all control. . .but that’s another story.

By VIRGINIA PORCELLO, Ph.D.
Director, Solutions Weight Management Program