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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Hippos aren’t fat, they are a wall of muscle, it’s just forms into a rounded shape which I’m sure others have explained why.
I think it is fair to point out that our health issues related to obesity generally happen later on than our life expectancy ever allowed for before modern medicine.
Lots of animals don’t even make it to 40 years old so how can you even say this is *not* a problem for them?
In a way its like saying obesity doesn’t cause heart problems as long as you die of other causes first?
Animal species (including humans) have a narrow range of healthy weights. Only humans exhibit such a wide range of weights within fully grown and developed adults of the species.
It’s not uncommon to find a 150 pound man sitting next to a 300 pound man. But you will not find fully grown and developed wild boar that is double the weight of other fully grown and developed wild boars. Same with walrus and hippos in the wild.
(You can take that wild boar and put it in a pen, and feed it an excess of food, and it will become much fatter – a meat pig….but that’s neither natural or healthy for the wild pig.)
The problem is the 300 pound man exists only because modern society provides him with cheap, plentiful, and calorie rich food and does not require much in the way of energy expenditure. It is virtually impossible to exists in nature (where food is scarce and people must spend time working, standing and moving). To live at 300 pounds is very unhealthy because you are twice the average healthy weight for humans. Humans were not designed to be this weight.
Excess fat and weight in general puts additional stress on the muscular and skeletal systems, resulting in health issues with mobility and movement. A 300 lb man has a muscular / skeletal system evolved to handle 150 lb….but one which is forced to carry an excess 150 lb.
Excess fat causes problems with hormonal and endocrine system.
Excess fat and the lifestyle factors that contribute to it also contribute to a whole host of other diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.
If you take an animal in a laboratory and double it’s calorie intake and restrict its movement, you significantly decrease it’s lifespan, just like we have done to ourselves.
Different animals. Different types of fat. Different physiology. They need fat to survive the cold weather
Comparing humans to a hippo or walrus is the issue here, let alone that the fat is for a completely specific evolutionary path. Certain animals are built with a normal goal in mind; what is normal and healthy for one animal isn’t necessarily the same for another. Primates, as humans are, generally are optimal with a particular body fat percentage, in general. A healthy chimp or baboon is very similar to a healthy human in appearance regarding body fat, and fat storing works similarly. Owls and iguanas have a different standard, for example.
I have done a lot of reading around obesity and one of the most interesting studies I read demonstrated that engaging in only four healthful behaviors eliminated the difference in mortality outcomes across average weight, overweight, and obese people. Those four behaviors are: no smoking, limited alcohol, daily exercise, and a high plant intake. There’s a striking chart in the paper here: https://www.jabfm.org/content/25/1/9.abstract?etoc
There are also studies on how being part of a tightly-knit social community can drastically reduce your risk of illness or death.
I will also add that a lot of what people think they know about being fat is outdated.
Adding to everything here, you don’t have to think just of the organs, but also the bones! Our bone structure as it is wasn’t made to support all that weight, while for hippos they were, he is meant to be that size and has support for it. So you also get some complications from this (which contributes to getting heavier, cause you can’t exercise well after a point to lose weight).
The causality works the other way.
When humans get insulin resistant, there are metabolic changes – higher triglycerides, lower, HDL, higher blood glucose – that lead to a higher risk of cardio vascular disease. And higher risk of type II diabetes.
Those changes also lead to weight accumulation in most people, though some people can be metabolically sick and still be thin.
Walrus’ and Hippos move a lot more than obese humans. They’re not binging on Netflix whilst chowing down on highly processed foods.
Thats fat their bodies are designed to carry, they are not obese for their species. Obese animals in captivity experience the same issues as humans who are over weight. A walrus has a lot of fat but it’s in proportion and the correct amount of fat for that creature, it is not “fat” in the obese or overweight way
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