They only go to school for eight grades.

But that seems to make for enough ‘smarts’–or at least enough to outsmart one pesky gene.

We used to chalk it up to plain hard work.  But now it seems the Amish have been pulling a fast one all along–on the pesky ‘fat gene’.

According to a recent study of Lancaster Amish, moderate physical activity each day seems to ‘switch off’ the gene.

From the article: ‘people who got about three or four hours of moderate physical activity a day weighed up to an average of 15 pounds less than the least active people’.

How they differentiate between switching off a gene to lose weight and simply burning more calories over those three to four hours to lose weight is, well, lost on me.  But I’m not always the sharpest stick in the shed on these scientific studies.

Maybe you can figure it out–read the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal article ‘Amish can outsmart fat genes, study says’ (no longer online), for more on how they do it.

Plus: Canadian Amish keep it off, too

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