Eli5: When humans get too fat or obese there is a high risk of heart related issues. But in nature for example Walrus is or hippos are so fat in shape almost their body is consists of fat and are they same sick like humans?
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The fat for those animals forms a thick layer under the skin, insulating them. The problem for us humans is we did not evolve to have fat, except a little to store for emergencies. But our bodies are not build to handle a lot of it, and part of it gets stored between organs, where it’s very unhealthy.
No, because these animals have spent millions of years evolving to fit their environment. A skinny walrus would probably die because it doesn’t have the fat it needs to keep warm in the ocean.
Humans being obese is not natural for us. We’re meant to be walking around a bunch, doing regular physical activity in foraging for food, and eating relatively low calorie foods.
They are designed to be like that, so they have the metabolism and supporting organs adapted to that body. Humans are not designed to be obese, so for us, it is a hindrance and stresses our bodies in a number of ways.
The difference is 2 fold
1) Those animals are meant to be fat. Their bodies are built differently, and can handle the increased weight and vascular pressures
2) Most of that fat isn’t visceral. It’s not fat wrapped around their organs causing issues. This is why Sumo Wrestlers are incredibly healthy despite their weight; all of their fat is over top of the muscle.
Humans are objectively getting taller and fatter and having a bigger body generally is linked to more heart issues. But as far as the health impacts of that, it’s also worth noting that death statistics out of context tell a wildly different story in context. When infectious disease deaths go down heart disease deaths go up, and as heart disease deaths go down cancer deaths go up because we’re actually living longer.
Someone please do fact check me on this but i don’t remember hippos being fat they are apparently very bulky with a thick skin
It’s basically because physiology differs between species. Humans and walruses have MANY differences. Walruses have tusks, right? The differences between our two species in our ability to gain fat, lose fat, utilize fat for insulation, and put our fat reserves to use is just as big as the differences between our teeth. These differences added up ate WHY we are not the same species of animals.
On top of that, humans seem to have experienced some LARGE changes in our species-wide disease profile fairly recently (within the last several hundred thousand years). For instance, the genes that contribute to heart disease in HUMANS (including Neandethals) are those that cause coronary vascular disease and arthrosclerosis, but both chimpanzees and bonobos, even when obese, rarely get coronary artery disease. What they get is more diseases of rhe heart muscle (myocardium). So, our propensity for cardiovascular disease isn’t unique or exclusive to humans, but it’s not really common in MOST other mammals.
Hippos are not fat their body consist mostly of muscle. All that Roundness you see is majority muscle. Hippos will FUCK YOU UP if they want to. Again Hippos are not fat they are strong! Walruses evolved to have a blubber layer to protect against cold but if they eat too much they too can get obese (normally this would only happen in captivity) and die from complications to being too fat and sedentary. Humans can have some fat on them but again too much and we will not do well. The problem with humans compared to other animals is generally animals don’t have “unlimited” resources at hand to get morbidly obese or even all that fat. If they get fat they cant catch food as well and will become skinny again, if we are fat, we can go to the supermarket still and get more food. So we just have better opportunities to get fat than animals in the wild. This is also why animals in captivity get fat because essentially they have unlimited resources and don’t have to work to get it so there is no limiting factor to their weight.
The common hippo is the third largest land mammal, coming after the elephant and the white rhino. Hippos are not fat. Despite their bulky and heavy appearance, hippos’ subcutaneous fat layers are quite thin. The 2,000-kilogram giant is mostly made up of muscles, and 6-centimeter thick skin.
So, is nobody is going to mention that u/Slam123456 appears to have had a stroke in the 2nd sentence of that question? JC did that sentence fall off a cliff.
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