Tell me about your family and I can tell you about your weight?

Mentioning genetics in the context of weight is like treading into a minefield; those who are brave enough to approach the topic need to don their hard hats and be prepared to take hits by followers in the ‘eat-less-and-move-more’ camp. Accusations of laziness, lack of willpower, making excuses and just looking for an easy way out are common responses to the genetic argument of obesity.

However, to ignore genetics when talking about obesity is somewhat confusing when considering how keen people are to attribute skinniness to ‘good genes’, ‘fast metabolism’, and ‘being naturally active’. Nobody seems to notice that skinniness and fatness are two sides of the same coin.

As so often in life, the truth lies somewhere in between. While behaviour is certainly not to be ignored when searching for the root cause of the obesity epidemic, neither should the heritability of body weight. Two recent studies from our research group add evidence to the idea that the predisposition to thinness, as well as to overweight, is transmitted across generations. Researchers used data from the Health Survey for England, which included a large sample of families with children aged 2-15 years to see whether thin children were more likely to have thin parents. Of the thousands of families included in the first study, it was shown that thin children were almost twice as likely to have 2 thin parents.  Furthermore, as parents’ weight decreased, children likewise got progressively lighter.

But, what about the reverse side of the coin – parental weight of children who were overweight? Here, exactly the same pattern was found, but it was even more apparent. Children, who had 2 obese or severely obese parents, were approximately 12 times more likely to be overweight and again the likelihood of obesity gradually decreased with decreased parental body weight. In both studies, findings were unrelated to other factors such as age, sex, social status or ethnicity. Interestingly, the mothers’ weight seemed to be more predictive of a child’s than the father’s, but only among those children that were overweight. For thin children, mothers’ and fathers’ genes appeared to contribute equally to being thin.

Two things are important here. Firstly, weight is governed in part by genetic factors; but, and this is the second important conclusion to take away, there are environmental factors involved that influence a child’s weight – otherwise all children would have had parents that fully resembled their weight status. Influences seem to come especially from the mother’s side, which may be, because the foetus receives nutrients from the maternal diet in the womb and after birth when the infant is breast-fed. In addition, maternal environmental influences may be stronger because the mother is usually in charge of food preparation.

Unfortunately, dietary records of participants were not available, so it was not possible to investigate how diets between underweight and overweight children and their parents differed.

Genes do not always act in the same way; their activity is influenced by the environment. This flexibility allowed our species to adapt well to changing environmental conditions, which made it possible to survive and evolve.  Variation is the key. And this is why it is easier for some than for others to (not) have their cake and eat it, too.

 

References:

Whitaker KL, Jarvis MJ, Boniface D, Wardle J. Inter-generational transmission of thinness. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/165/10/900

Whitaker KL, Jarvis, MJ, Beeken RJ, Boniface D, Wardle J. Comparing maternal and paternal intergenerational transmission of obesity risk in a large population-based sample. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 91, 2010, 1560-1567. http://asn-cdn-remembers.s3.amazonaws.com/f8ee4cfad55bd34900cff3371b9a146d.pdf