Doctors all over the world will be familiar with the above line when facing parents of overweight boys – or girls for that matter – unwilling to consider that overindulgence has anything to do with their fatness.  It appears, however, that they may have a point..  To-day’s publication of “ Evidence for strong genetic influence on childhood adiposity despite the force of the obesogenic environment “ [Wardle J, Carnell S, Haworth C & Plomin R, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition] confirms the argument.  Wardle’s paper indicates that the adiposity in pre-adolescent children born since the onset of the obesity epidemic is highly heritable and that differences in body mass index [BMI] and waist size may be 77% governed by genes.

 

The NOF’s fear is that this will now be seen as the reason not to bother about losing weight or striving for a healthy lifestyle.  The paper should not let anyone off the hook. On the contrary, the genetic predisposition to becoming overweight/obesity should re-emphasise the need to eat and exercise healthily.  Wardle herself underlines this but the NOF’s concern is that your average mother/father -in-the-street may not get past the title and to-day’s media headlines.  Read the paper and form your own opinion:  it is certainly one of the more important papers to be pushed in the last five years.