Should we blame genetics for the obesity epidemic?

No

10 of 28

by Lisa H Warren

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Studies come, and studies go; but from what I've seen of different people and their weight, I find it hard to believe that genetics play much of a role in most obesity. I realize, of course, that my opinion may fly in the face of some studies, and that the evidence on which I base my opinion is only anecdotal. Sometimes, though, anecdotal evidence can be enough to make a person doubt some beliefs (scientific or not).

There are, course, different levels of obesity. A large number of Americans (and people of other nations, as well) are considered, "obese". An awful lot of people have way too much fat on them, but in general, the vast majority of obese people we know/see are not heavy to the point of having difficulty moving, fitting into seats on a plane, or generally functioning in day-to-day living. A lot of fairly overweight people can still buy their clothes in the "regular" department, rather than the "plus-size" department. Even when women (for example) shop at plus-size stores, many of them are not at the point of obesity that is so extreme it makes normal moving difficult.

Then, however, there are people who are so extremely overweight that they seem to have difficulty with almost all tasks. People who are this extremely overweight do not, for the most part, make up the the majority of most overweight people. Whether or not the number people who are this extremely overweight is on the rise is not something I'll address here. The point is, whether or not that is the case, most obese people still fall into the "average overweight" category.

In my own life I've known a number of people who, themselves, were heavy as children, but whose own children have been slender from early childhood through adulthood. Also common are parents (particularly mothers) who were slender as children and young adults, but who become obese in middle age. What I've noticed is that, at least among "suburban,
middle-cla ss" families where healthy eating is often emphasized, most children are slender or average and grow up to be slender or average (whether or not their mothers were slender as children or younger women). On the other hand, most of us know people who have been slender since childhood but grow up and gain more weight than they should.

I know one young girl who was placed for adoption when she was two years old. She was a "chunky" two-year-old (many are), but by the time she was past three and with her new mother she began to become slim. She started kindergarten as a slender child and remained slender until today (at 33 years old and after delivering 4 children). Here's the interesting part: When she met her birth family she discovered a very overweight mother and several extremely overweight siblings. In fact, every member of her immediate birth family was very heavy. Although as a child she had been given dance lessons, and that may have helped her be as slender but muscular as she was (once she passed six or seven years old), this young woman wasn't working out or restricting her diet. In fact, she ate far more
fat than is ideal once she was teenager. As a younger child, however, she had been served healthy, normal, meals and reasonable snacks.

My son, also an adopted child, seemed to be born an ectomorph. He was wiry little boy from infancy through his teen years, but for a few months in his late teens he began taking in way too many calories and being less active than he had been. He didn't become extremely overweight because he put himself on a carbohydrate-restric ted diet when he saw his middle expand; but for a period of months, he had a little bit of an "almost double chin" and a pudgy middle. It was hard to believe this boy who had always appeared "chronically ectomorphic" could ever develop even that much pudginess. Once he lost those extra, temporary, pounds he didn't gain them back. The interesting thing about my son's being a narrow, slender, boy is that his brother and sister were also slender, narrow, children (and they are my biological children). My kids' father is an example of a person who was of average/light weight, who went through a phase of getting quite obese, and who later lost the extra weight permanently (as far as I can tell). It is interesting to note that my son's biological siblings were heavy when I met them years ago. Their mother was heavy as well.

How many of us have heard or read the remark, "There were no fat people in concentration camps."

There is no doubt that many children inherit the frames of their parents (although not all do). It is pretty obvious to most of us, too, that the pattern in which extra weight accumulates in different areas is often similar for children and parents. The girl who inherits her mother's small frame and an inherited tendency to become "Rubenesque" is going to appear to be a "clone" of her mother IF that girl gains extra weight. Whether or not she does, however, could well depend on her own lifestyle. Even with that, though, there are women who have not inherited their mother's (or father's) frame. I know women who would be considered, "apple-shaped," (even though they're awfully overweight); and who have had "pear-shaped"mothers . Obviously, if a young woman's mother wears a size 6 shoe, and the young woman shares her mother's shoe size, both of those women will gain weight on fewer calories than a woman with a size 10 shoe would. This is where heredity obviously shows up. Then again, my closest girlfriends all wore size 6 shoes and had small frames - and they weren't related to one another.

Most of us have seen television news programs on childhood obesity. Very often these programs will profile families in which parents are extremely overweight, and children are equally overweight. Much of the time parents are given counseling to help them learn how to prepare healthier meals for their children. Very often, these are families for whom eating junk food is a way of life, or else who are of low income and rely too heavily on starches.

Regardless of income, stress hormones cause people to crave high-energy foods. Low-income people usually live under more stress than higher-income people; but life today is stressful for a lot of people, regardless of income. Today's children faced abbreviated childhoods and are expected to deal with "grown-up" things long before they're emotionally equipped to handle them. There are any number of factors in day-to-day life today that make living more stressful in ways it was not 30 years ago.

There are other possible, contributing factors to much today's obesity rate; and that is that many people have removed sugar and much fat from their diets. As a result, under stress, a person may eat more of whatever sugar-free/low-fat food he's eating as a way of trying to feel satisfied. In order to return to a non-stress-response state, the body actually craves sugar or fat. It is only a certain type of high-energy foods that will return the body to a non-stress-response state; and sugar-free foods or low-fat foods will not do the job. Sometimes a small serving of that sugar or fat would return the body to a normal state with far fewer calories than the extra servings of sugar-free/fat-free ever will.

Another factor in considering the role of heredity is this: It is now known that the brain connections formed in the first three years of life can be responsible for a person's stress response and immune response for the rest of his life. This would mean that the mother who over-responds to stress (and may experience cravings more easily than someone with a normal stress response) could nurture her child in a way that would lead to his having a normal stress response. The mother with a normal stress response, on the other hand, could fail to help her child develop the right brain connections for a similar, normal, stress response.

Finally, the fact the number of people who smoke has gone down could account for some weight gain. With fewer people turning to nicotine in time of stress, there's also the chance they instead turn to food.

When it comes to the knowledge that genetics play a role in any number of areas of our lives, I'm neither qualified to, nor interested in, arguing against that well established fact.
With regard to the degree heredity plays a role in anyone's obesity, however; given what I, myself, have observed just by living, I can't help but believe that any role heredity may have is an extremely small one (in the case of people who aren't among those more rare, extremely obese, individuals).

Whether the individual who weighs 400 lbs has something unusual and inherited about his metabolism/endocrine system is a separate issue. With regard to "run-of-the-mill" obese people, though, I tend to suspect that time and more study will prove that heredity plays far less a role than many today believe. (In view of the fact that I am not an expert in this field, I reserve the right to be proven wrong.)

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