"Yeah guys, it's genetic" Yesterday, my AP biology teacher had us read various news articles about genetics in class. One was about eating disorders being 50-60% heritable, and another was about obesity and obesity-related conditions being genetic. In both cases, the teacher explained how certain conditions are also influenced by environment - some genes will make a person more likely to develop an eating disorder, cancer, etc (she didn't mention obesity as an example), but that doesn't mean they'll automatically have it.  The thing is, the teacher is fat. Obviously so. There's no denying it; everyone can see it. Meanwhile, I don't think there's a single fat kid in the entire class (the joy of AP classes..). So, we're all sitting there awkwardly as she's talking about obesity as though there isn't this elephant in the room that she's obese herself. Despite basically admitting that having certain genes for fat storage doesn't automatically mean a person will become obese, she twisted it into one of those "life lessons" about how fat people aren't at fault for eating too much and we should be more "mindful" of other people's "struggles". She also mentioned being a tutor for anorexic girls before she was a teacher, which I found kind of ironic. She described how the girls were watched when they ate and weighed daily. If that's acceptable, perhaps we should be doing the same to fat people?