I'm not trying to be snarky here, I've really wondered about this for a long time.

There's the horrible cliche of "fat and dumb," but I've noticed over the course of my life that so many overweight people are actually very intelligent, gifted, maybe even touched with genius.

Maybe along with a genetic predisposition to being overweight many also have "large" intelligence and gifts to give the world.

Has anyone else pondered over this? Perhaps an evolutionary edge of some kind?

Stereotypes suck, don't they?

From personal observation when I was in school, I noticed no correlation. Then again, there were so few 'bigger' kids that it's kind of a small sample size. I'd say the same things about the adults I know now, but it seems a bit more 'scientific' thinking of my school years since we were clearly separated based on intellect level.

Keep in mind that there are other intelligence stereotypes, too.
- "Blonde and dumb."
- "(Athlete)(soldier) and dumb." I was in the military for 13 years; that one is alive and well. I'm also a big sports fan, and it seems to blow peoples' minds when a millionaire athlete is actually well-spoken and has good grammar.
- "Redneck with a drawl from rural Tennessee and dumb."
- "Extroverted party animal and dumb, since all intellects are surely introverted, bespectacled and shy"
- "Asian and smart."
- "(Indian/Muslim/anyone-with-brown-skin-and-different-clothes) and smart."

I believe that whatever small amount of truth there is to these stereotypes,the socioeconomic factors far outweigh (pardon the pun) a possible genetic link to storing body fat more readily.

I don't speak with a drawl or twang (west coast born & bred), but I still remember the only time someone said I must be dumb because I was a farmer (I wasn't, but lived then as now on a hobby farm).

But I think my donkeys are smarter than I am. They eat and play all day - I'm the one who shovels the manure.

Fresh out of college, my first boss always introduced me in a very degrading way "baby research assistant." I am naturally dirty blond, and at that time Ashley Simpson was the first celeb to dye her hair DARK- and i loved it. I have been a "brilliant brunette" ever since, and most people are shocked to see my pics of me as a teen now (I am 30, so have been coloring my hair for nearly 10 years).

Does it make people "take me more seriously"? no......but i also have a serious "baby face" which makes people usually estimate my age for college or occasionally a teen if i am in gym clothes
But that is ok--- they pick up based upon my words, and i hope not the color of my ponytail

no evolutionary edge.

fat and dumb
short and dumpy
tall as a bean pole

all just things people say to insult or to compliment

fat and dumb are good nasty ways to upset someone if you are in a fight and you want to hit low.

smart skinny people and smart fat people. dumb skinny people and dumb fat people. I have met them all I also met average people that are dumb as rocks or as smart as a whip!

Maybe so...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/...kusaolp00000592

What an absolutely innane question. What does one's body composition have to do with his/her's mental acumen, ability retain and recall information? What makes a "smart" person? What makes an "intelligent" person? What makes someone lack "common sense"? What makes someone "book smart" yet, fall short on common sense?

It is a medical condition with many causes, but what it is not is measure of intelligence. An individual may suffer physically from a chemical imbalance, a mental disability, or it can also be a learned condition (family's eating habits).

However distinguished, it has absolutely no bearing on an individual's intellectual capacity.

I'm sorry but I laughed at that. At least he was being honest, don't you think? Thinking back, weren't you a baby? I know I was.

Did you guys miss the original posters question? What does "baby research assistant" and the color of a pony tail have to do with the original question regarding obesity and intelligence?

Oh my...

Stereotypes.

But on the other hand, I realized that people might have thought me pretty stupid when I was in a carb fog & couldn't think. Also people who are obese but undernourished can have cognitive difficulties.

I may not have presented the issue clearly in my original post. I wasn't thinking so much about the stereotypes but just that in my experience I've come to know (or know about) so many overweight people who also seemed highly intelligent and gifted.

So there was some kind of reflection going on in my mind about how perhaps people with a predisposition to being overweight also may be gifted in other ways. As others have pointed out here, in ancient days those who could more easily become weighty and maintain it during times of scarce food may have been seen as special in some way, "shapeshifters."

And yet there are so many negative connotations about overweight people seeming like "slobs," weak-willed, less competent, etc.

This dialogue doesn't seem to be going anywhere, my thoughts were more in the way of conjecture.

No doubt fat people have to work harder and develop better personality traits. Does that make them seem smarter? I suppose maybe.

That's kind of the point of the question though. If people perceive you one way does that change how you grow? Sure. No more baby research assistant and one more fully operational death star of a researcher.

There is definitely a comprehension misfire in these responses. The original question posed has NOTHING TO DO WITH PERCEPTION OR STEREOTYPES. Perception and stereotyping was NOT in question, the question presented was do obese individuals have a higher I.Q.?

It is my opinion that intelligence is too complex to be measured and an obese individual probably does not possess any more of an intellectual advantage over an underweight or average weighted person. Moreover, what if the individual who is now considered by medical standards to be obese, may well have already had an advanced level of intelligence prior to extreme weight gain, which could have stemmed from a chemical imbalance, compulsory eating disorder, depression, anxiety, polyphagia (extreme hunger; a symptom of diabetes), and a few others.

In short, Joe Blow or Susie Salad could have already been a smart cookie before they became obese. No, obese people come in all levels of intelligence. They are not a select group of savants. They are just one of us.

That's all.

You did fine in your original post. People aren't making a statement about what you asked. They are making a statement about who they are.

inflammabl: thank you.

Pazia: I think what you are seeing is, if not just a coincidentally select group you've run into (it might be, you know), simply the results of a degree of compensation for cultural adaptation. They're no more intelligent than any other group, I imagine, they just might be in a situation, due to their size, where it's slightly more apparent.

Much like the fat girls who are so funny (SHE HAS SUCH A GREAT PERSONALITY) or brash -- both of those, while traits one might find in anybody of course, are not uncommon "adaptive" (defensive) personality elements for the obese.

People often focus on what they 'can' do well. At one time I focused on martial arts and rock guitar and singing and how I looked in leather and later, when I was unusually suddenly about 200# overweight, after getting over the suicidal impulse and having to radically revise my plans for my life, I focused on what was left -- mostly work, but also tons of (sedentary it so happens) personal interests. I wouldn't do it again voluntarily but even I had to admit that I was a lot less shallow once I got over myself.

I spent a lot more time reading and thinking and writing after I got fat that I hadn't spent before because I'd been "having a life" to a much greater degree then -- in the typical way people think of that -- far more social behavior. I became more of an intellectual after.

My intelligence did not increase in the slightest, probably. It's even possible that with declining health (the size reflected) it might have been worse. But my focus on the more cerebral, rather than physical, category of things in life did change. I was decently bright before but that wasn't really what people most noticed or remembered about me. Once I got very fat, though, I think it was. Maybe that is simply because it had less competition from other positive qualities, once the 'negative' element of social-response-to-fat took up front and center.

Fwiw. Who knows!

PJ