Genetics Vs Free Will

I make no qualms or hidden behind the fact that I am a scientist, and more specifically a geneticist.

I've studied genetics and learned many techniques for understanding genetic experiments for about 4 years now. We have been researching genetics since the late 19th century when Gregor Mendel was playing with some peas in his backyard.

We were aware of transposons --special sections of DNA that move from one section to the next having an influence on the transcription of a gene and it's expression-- since the 60's. Breeding and artificial selection itself has been going on since we first became an agriculture society oh 12,000 years ago or so.

But there is still this hope, this dream that we can all overcome it. People assume all that genetic stuff in your cells is just an idea and that free will with lots of hard work you can defeat. There are dreams that we can easily rid ourselves of genetically predisposed diseases when in practice even the only disease that is caused by one gene (which is an incredibly rare thing, even hair color is at least three genes), Cystic Fibrosis, one we were sure to cure with gene therapy is alluding us.

Yet people, doctors, the media, and every arm chair dietitian in the world thinks you can completely overcome your genetic code and be as thin as you want just by "eating less."

Someone finally got in their head to do a little study to test this theory --it's so small I can't even call it an experiment-- involving thin people who are told to over eat and under exercise. It's the exact opposite of a diet which we all know, and even WW is claiming now, doesn't work.

There is a reference to an older study that I think people would find very interesting to learn about "In 1967, a medical researcher, Ethan Sims, carried out an experiment at Vermont state prison in the US. He recruited inmates to eat as much as they could to gain 25% of their body weight, in return for early release from prison.

Some of the volunteers could not reach the target however hard they tried, even though they were eating 10,000 calories a day. Sims's conclusion was that for some, obesity is nearly impossible."

People who could have gotten released from prison could not eat their way to obesity, yet people are expected to starve themselves down to a "normal" weight. Perhaps I am missing something here but doesn't that go against every rhetoric we've been fed since some diet company got in bed with the government to create the "Obesity Crisis."

Imagine if instead of pounds we're all being told is the enemy it's inches. Why just by eating this magical pill and standing in a small box for a few hours you could decrease your size in 10 weeks.

There's even a surgery you could do to decrease the size of your leg bones so you'd be as short as you always dreamed.

Seems insane doesn't it? Well height is just as much determined genetically as weight. We can affect it some with hormones but most parents who force their children to take growth hormone to get taller are frowned upon. But what about that parent who signs their child up for lap band surgery or puts them on alli?

For a better take on it all check out this article about the "Tall Epidemic."

Maybe it's all part of the mythical American Dream that we can overcome anything life throws our way and the idea of something as simple as the crap shoot of your parents DNA intermingling causing a greater affect on you than your own will power terrifies us.

And as sad as it is, I know I could spout all the statistics and data til I was blue in the face and still our world perception is that a person just eats themselves into obesity and it's all their lazy ass fault yet a person who is thin and can eat whatever they want should just thank Lady Luck.

Everyone wants to ignore their own little DNA sometimes to disastrous results.