Biology Is Not Destiny - Part I

I just remember one September night a few months after leaving Wellspring Academy; it was after homecoming or something.  And I was like, ‘If I don't control myself now,  I'm gonna be put back in the same place I was before.'  And things have to change in my life.  And I can't sit here and whine that this is my biology and this is what is meant to be for my life.  I have to be happy that I have the chance to do this.  So I was like, ‘Get over yourself.  Just do it.'  - Vicki M.

If biology were fully and completely in charge, no one would ever lose weight and keep it off.  Vicki refused to accept her biological limitations.  Your son and daughter can do the same.

There are actually 12 distinct biological factors that make weight control quite difficult.  Whenever people develop excess weight (at any point in their lives) their bodies become especially efficient and effective at maintaining higher-than-normal levels of fat.  These biological forces include ones that begin their work before a baby takes its first breath and others that develop over the years.  Of the 12, Wellspring students and their parents tell us that five biological factors most impress them and help remind them of the power of this biological foe.

1. Genes

Oh, you know you're always judged.  Oh, his mother must be driving him crazy to eat like that.  But it turns out that it's genetics.  - Audrey G., Jesse G.'s mother

Genetic factors are those that are inherited from our parents and prior generations.  In breeding studies with mice, fatter mice have been mated with other fatter mice and leaner mice with other leaner mice.  Over fifteen to twenty-five generations, this can produce mice pups from the fatter matings with twice as much fat as the pups from the leaner matings.  This research shows the tremendous degree to which inheritance of genetic makeup determines the tendency to develop excess fat.

Human parallels include research showing that children born to parents who are both obese are four times more likely to become obese than children born to lean parents. Some recent research on twins also emphasizes the degree to which inheritance plays a role in developing excess weight.  Recall the study by Dr. Bouchard of Canada involving overfeeding twelve pairs of identical twins for one hundred days.  If one member of a twin pair gained a lot of weight, the other member of the pair did also.  In addition, the twins who gained more weight tended to gain more of the weight as fat and less of it as lean body tissues (such as muscles or organs).  Other studies with twins growing up in separate households have shown similar trends:  they resembled each other in weight status much more than the siblings with whom they grew up.  These findings make it clear that some of us are born with bodies primed to gain weight easily from day one while others may resist weight gain.

Just as genetics dramatically affects weight gain, it similarly affects weight regain after losing it. 

Lauren S. is keenly aware of her biological vulnerability - and she is dead set against letting those forces determine her fate.  She's not about to become sedentary again:

I exercise every day and I've done that since the day I got back from Wellspring.  Some days I'll get up in the morning and do at least a mile or a mile and a half jog before school.  Some days I'm just too tired to get up and I'll just do it when I come home from school, after homework or something like that.  I do it whenever I can fit it into my schedule.  I just make sure to do it every day and I'm lucky because I have an elliptical machine at my house.

I really enjoy kick boxing and Tai Bo and classes like that.  But because I don't drive and my parents are busy, I don't get to go to as many of those as I'd like to.  In some ways, I'd much rather do my exercise alone than with a trainer or something like that.  It's just so much more convenient.

On a bad day and one that I just don't feel like exercising, it becomes much more difficult to motivate myself to do it.  A lot of times I just suck it up and do it anyway.  I'm not going to lie; there have been days that I haven't exercised.  But I know I feel so much better when I do it and so I have to do it.

Recently, I had about a month of really struggling with getting myself to exercise.  I did it a lot, but it was... my motivation wasn't strong.  So I went online and I was up until midnight on my computer for two hours, finding motivational quotes.  I printed them and posted them on the refrigerator, in my room and on mirrors all over the house.  So every time I opened the refrigerator, it would say something positive.  It seemed to help me.

When I can walk into a store and pick something up and put it on and think this is cute, that's motivation for me.  And I also know that when my jeans start getting a little tight, that it's not okay. - Lauren S.

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