Heredity and Obesity

00:00 - 17 Feb 2026

The statement, frequently encountered, that obesity is merely the expression of an excess of intake of food over the bodily expenditures, is far from satisfactory to a critical student of the subject. There are at least a few obese persons who are fairly active in their habits and frugal in their diets; these, Du Bois remarks, furnish us with the true problem of obesity. A question that obviously presents itself in this connection concerns the basal metabolism of the aberrant types. Do they differ from the [average] by carrying out their fundamental exchange of energy more economically? This has been a question not easily answered, because of the difficulties of making tenable comparisons between the different persons concerned.