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Comment by codyb | Hacker News Reader

I love whole milk. Plain and simple. It's delicious. It's got a ton of good fat and protein in it. My entire family drinks it and always has. We're all of healthy weight (my brother and I are actually pretty skinny, although he has a bit of a gut now that he's 32, I'm still 25 and because of handstands and pull ups you can see my abs a bit).

We also eat very healthy in general as a family. Lots of pasta with clam sauce, red sauce, alfredo sauce. Lots of vegetables. Avocados. Clementines.

And we all lead healthy lifestyles in regards to exercise. Lots of musical instruments being played, hiking, canoeing, walking, and biking.

So, I'm not sure what my comment is here really, but the moral of the story seems to be for me: If you eat healthy foods (and don't eat too many processed items), and if you partake in healthy activities, you'll probably end up pretty healthy.

How much of it is genes? I have no idea.

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It's worth noting that a healthy weight accompanied by healthy exercise doesn't necessarily prevent heart disease. There's this perception that those at risk are overweight, and that isn't necessarily true. If you look at a country like the Philippines (and probably other similar countries) you'll see plenty of people at a healthy weight who live an active lifestyle that are at extremely high risk of heart disease. They appear healthy from the outside, but there's high rates of smoking and probably not the greatest dietary habits.

And, I don't mean to detract away from what you're saying. Eating a healthy balanced diet is the most important way to prevent heart disease.

Eh, I'm not sure I totally agree with what you are saying:

a) As you mentioned, smoking is a huge confounder in your example

b) A lot of congenital heart disease is not preventable via dietary intervention. For people who do require dietary intervention it's going to depend on the disease. For a small portion of people, for instance, eating low cholesterol is important, but the vast majority it makes no difference. For these people eating low cholesterol is the biggest difference, not a generally balanced diet.

c) There is a ton of science showing massive improvements in heart disease outcomes from losing weight.

I'm not saying eating a balanced diet doesn't matter, but for most people actually being a healthy weight is the most important thing, and for many others the dietary intervention is pretty specific, ie: not low cholesterol not "eat a balanced diet."

> We also eat very healthy in general as a family. Lots of pasta with clam sauce, red sauce, alfredo sauce. Lots of vegetables. Avocados. Clementines.

I'd urge you to change your frame of reference from "certain foods are healthy or not" to "certain foods are optimal for certain scenarios." Pasta in clam sauce is a pretty calorically dense food, and while there is nothing toxic about it, it's difficult to argue that many people need another calorically dense food, especially one that is low in protein.

This is not to say carbs and fat are bad, but that for the vast majority of Americans they need to reduce carbs and fat and increase protein to move towards a healthy diet.

Relevant the op, and your point about milk being high protein, milk could be a way for this to happen.

> Americans they need to reduce carbs and fat and increase protein to move towards a healthy diet

The majority of Americans consume more than the recommended daily intake of protein, the source of which is mostly red meat, which is arguably a less healthy diet. I do agree that the average American consume to many carbs, and again, from sub-optimal sources. What need to happen is an increase in fruits and vegetables which most American are sorely deficient in.

I agree that the average American consumes more than the recommended daily intake, but the recommended daily intake is complete bullshit. It's 50g, it should be more than double that. It's a class issue: protein is expensive.

The red meat stuff is controversial. From everything I've read, including the China Study, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of red meat in an otherwise healthy diet is probably fine. Who knows though. There definitely isn't clear science there.

I totally agree that in general vegetable intake needs to increase. Fruits are ok, but not great because of the fructose. I don't really think fruits are a necessary part of a healthy diet, but they certainly can be.

Sometimes genes are a good bit of it. In my family we have ~150lb people who eat endlessly, thousands of calories a day. 6 ft tall, thin as a rail. Many of them. So that's got to be genes.

Or, you know, behavioral things like activity patterns, which can be quite heavily influenced by culture even at the level of a family, without being genetic. Or gut flora, which, though there are good reasons that they can tend to be quite closely similar in families, are environmental rather than genetic.

"X seems particularly common in family" does not imply "X is genetic".

Cool; thanks! Didn't consider all that. For us, activity isn't the factor. We were all pretty sedentary as kids. If gut flora is environmental, then that's a no-go since we span 5 states. So in our case, genes is the winner so far.

> If gut flora is environmental, then that's a no-go since we span 5 states.

Its environmental, but one of the key environments for transferring them is mother-to-child, particularly at birth.

A lot of things that are environmental rather than genetic are shaped particularly strongly by the early (prenatal, perinatal, or early childhood) environment, which can confound efforts to intuit the degree to which a feature is genetic vs. environmental based on unstructured observations of the degree to which it seems to be associated with families.

Sorry, but it's pretty unlikely this is true. The biggest TDEE difference seen in studies is about a 300 calorie difference for people of the same weight (so not enough to have 150lbs people recklessly eating thousands of calories and not gaining weight). It's very likely you have members of your family who don't eat a lot day to day and eat a ton at family gatherings etc.

If I'm wrong here I have a lot of scientists who would like to examine your family.

I'm one of those people. Ate like a horse; constantly hungry for decades growing up. Bring on the scientists!

Growing up is a pretty metabolically stressful activity. It's not uncommon to be able to eat huge amounts and not get fat while you are growing.

There are certainly fully matured people who can eat more than other fully matured people who are the same size and weight, but the amount they can eat more is like a cookie a day maybe.

Obesity in America is a youth problem today. Can't argue that away with level of activity or environment, not with such dramatically different outcomes. But anyway, beating a dead horse.

Same here, I find whole milk delicious and healthy; it's been a big part of our family's diet (we're vegetarian).

What I find more ridiculous though is how the food industry sells Whey, Casein and Cheese separately at up-marked prices and people have bought into the idea that it's ok to consume these milk by-products separately while avoiding milk.

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