[BJBBB]

My siblings are not morbidly obese, but they have been overweight most of their adult lives. The people they hang out with personally and professionally are also overweight and many have the typical health problems that accompany the overweight demographic.

My wife and myself are not overweight and have never been. She was a tom-boy and a jock during high school and did intramural stuff in college. I was on high school track team and either walked or rode my bicycle - no car. While in the military, most of the people in my shop had to eat 4x per day to maintain our weight. Afterwards, during college, I lived on cheap beans and pasta or rice, and the occasional can of cheap tuna, and peanut butter sandwiches until I met my wife. She taught me how to cook and introduced me to much better stuff. So I did not eat 'correctly' until my early 30s.

Until the last two years, we had remained physically active and were never overweight. We have gained some weight but are not overweight and, other than the incident that severely curbed our physical activity, have had no significant health problems.

The pattern of life-long activity and a physical mind-set seems to be a common factor when you look at older healthy people (over 55) that were never overweight, regardless of food quantity and type consumption.

You either are lucky enough to have decent genetics and the willingness to start an active life well, or you go through life increasingly overweight with chronic health problems.