Obesity Risk by The Genetic
Are you believe that the genes determine about 80% the risk of obesity, so that environmental factors seem to have less importance than is credited.
This statement comes from the findings of a study conducted by researchers at University College London, who assessed the body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference in a sample of 5092 twin pairs aged 8 to 11 years born between 1994 and 1996.
Twin studies are performed to differentiate between the risks of genetic nature imposed by environmental factors such as diet or socioeconomic status.
Thus, if the genetic variations have considerable influence on obesity risk, or monozygotic twins with identical genes, should have an increased risk of obesity than Fraternal or dizygotic twins with different genes, living in the same environment.
study showed that identical twins had BMI and waist circumferences of more similar than Fraternal twins even though each pair of twins lived in the same house.
Further analysis predicted that the inherent risk to obesity is genetically determined in approximately 77% while shared environmental factors weighed 10% and 14% unshared.
These results confirm other studies which suggested a contribution of genes on the risk of obesity of between 55 and 85%.
The authors acknowledge that the environments that promote obesity pose a major risk factor but, nevertheless, genetic predisposition is the most important reason that some children are obese while others do not.
Also recommend that diet, nutrition and physical activity of children is optimized to ensure that those who are genetically predisposed to obesity do not accumulate excess weight