Obesity signifies a lessor brain, states the latest - shall I say - questionable study. The cohort was 32 people both men and women and claimed to not included people with known brain damage. The researchers concluded that (after imaging the brains of the cohort) that people who are overweight have "less gray matter" in their brains and thus lack the mental capability to make good food choices.
Now true, the study was reported in the UK Telegraph (which is the UK equivalent of the US "National Enquirer") i.e. not a real reliable source, but it appears to be a real study.
I really don't have to say much about this study because it is so inane. But I will remind, that some of the greatest brains of this and former centuries, happened to be very overweight i.e. GK Chesterton is one example. President Taft was so overweight, he got stuck in the bathtub one day. And there are numerous other examples. Attend a meeting of the high IQ group, MENSA, and you will see many overweight folks, suggesting the opposite of this study i.e. that overweight people might have more powerful brains on the average. This would be a no brainer (pun intended) - overweight folks are often better nourished than slim folks. But I would also, know this from experience - there is a lot of obesity in my family. Mother had a Master's degree, Dad, a PhD and so forth.
Whether a person was obese was decided by BMI (in this study) and we all know BMI isn't an accurate measurement anyway - because it fails to take in consideration, bone structure, musculature and several other factors.
So, where did the researchers go wrong? Ironically, intelligence cannot be judged by brain imaging - the brain turns out to be one of the last frontiers in medicine and can be a real fooler.
For example, when David Snowden reported on his famous "nun's study" (he actually forensically examined the brains of several Catholic nuns after they died - he had permission, of course), he found rather surprisingly, that nuns with dementia might have large good looking brains. But his greatest surprise came when he dissected the brain of a nun who lived into her 90's. She was mentally sharp and functional until the date of death and Dr. Snowden was anxious to examine her brain.
To his surprise, her brain was small, less convoluted and more shriveled up than some of the nuns suffering dementia.
Enough said. Obviously, one cannot judge intelligence from what a person's brain looks like. (Photo is of Cheryl Hayworth, gold medalist Olympic weight lifter).
1 comment:
My dad was fat all his life. He graduated from high school with the highest score on the matriculation exam in all of Australia. He went on to get a PhD in nuclear physics, and for fun he learned to read all of the major languages in the world, not just European ones but also Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Arabic, etc.
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