On Apr 22, 4:16*pm, James wrote:
There are people starving themselves in order to live longer. *It's
been proven in rats that limited food resulted in longer life spans.
So would you? *Or at least don't give food treats?

Define "Starve". Those who are "starving themselves" are hardly doing
that. What they are doing is eating a very carefully designed calorie-
restricted diet with intake below "averages".

Now, compare the typical US diet to most of the rest of the world, and
most of the rest of the world is 'starving itself' - and doing quite
well despite.

Our cats self-limit. There is always high-quality dry food available
and they are fed as much wet food as they will eat in about 30 minutes
twice a day. They get a great deal of exercise, have very low-stress
lives and lots of stimulation. Accordingly they are quite slender,
even the Maine Coon. We get 'excellent marks' from our vet for weight
and muscle-tone.

What it comes down to is that a healthy cat with a healthy life-style
and a healthy history will not get fat and will not 'pig out' - even
if altered. And if one observes the behavior of wild cats (as opposed
to stray domestic cats) even in situations where prey is plentiful,
neither do they get fat.

Domesticated cats get fat for several reasons, sometimes one at a
time, sometimes a combination of several. For the most part, the non-
physical reasons a

a) The cat once lived under near-starvation conditions. Such cats will
eat as much as they can whenever they can as they are never sure where
their next meal is coming from. They can be trained out of this
behavior, but it is very, very difficult.

b) They are bored. Much as people over-eat when they are bored, so
will cats - if food is available. If the boredom is addressed, they
will generally stop over-eating.

c) They are under stress - physical or emotional. Eating is
displacement behavior and reserve-building. As above.

And, of course, there are any number of physical/medical conditions
that can lead to obesity if not tended carefully.

We can control the first three to a degree with our cats - and that
will help greatly in preventing nutritional and diet-related diseases
in the future.

But, cutting to the chase - if you understand the analogy between the
US diet and the 'rest-of-the-world' diet, if we could provide a safe
and healthy venue for our cats to stalk, catch, kill and eat natural
prey under natural conditions they would be a great deal healthier for
it - and we certainly would not be 'starving' them. After all, that is
precisely what they have evolved to do for these last half-million
years or so - until we started messing about with their gene-pool.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA