Is obesity a family ailment? Partly yes, but not completely. Daughters are much more likely to be seriously overweight if their mother is overweight, but sons are not, a new British study shows.
This effect already starts when children are very small. The researchers of the University of Southampton measures BMI, muscle mass and body fat of 240 children and their parents. They did this when the children were 4 years old, when they were 6-7, and when they were 8 or 9 years old. And annoying but true: from the age of about 6, the daughters had the same BMI and fat mass as their mothers. That was not the case with the sons. There was also no correlation with the father’s weight.
Nature of nurture?
How this is possible, the researchers are not quite sure yet. You can think that genes play a role or of course the eating pattern: children at that age eat what their parents tell them. But that doesn’t explain why there is no relationship between the BMI of sons and mothers or daughters and fathers.
“In the UK, mothers still spend more time with their young children than fathers. Therefore, they may have a greater influence on diet and exercise,” said lead researcher Rebecca Moon Scientias.nl. “But there can also be prenatal effects. Lifestyle factors and maternal diet have previously been shown to affect male and female fetuses differently and there are fundamental differences in adipose tissue in men and women that may explain this difference.” This increased risk of obesity may therefore already arise in the womb, but Moon emphasizes that more research is needed to confirm this.
Need help
For now, she thinks that more help should be provided to teach families how to live healthier, before and during pregnancy. “This study makes it clear that daughters of mothers who are obese or have a lot of body fat have a much higher risk of becoming overweight themselves. So we have to start very early in life with help to control body weight and fat percentage, especially in girls who are the children of overweight mothers. We need to help these families live healthier lives before the woman becomes pregnant to reduce the risk of their children becoming overweight.” She suggests that parents should be taught how to eat healthily and get enough exercise.
More than BMI
Of British study has been able to determine the transmission of obesity from mother to child more accurately than previous studies, the researcher says. “This is the first study in which the body composition of parents and their children is also measured. This creates a good picture of body fat, muscles and bones. In other countries, research has already been done with BMI alone, but that is not always a good indicator of the fat percentage.”
The numbers
The importance of tackling overweight and obesity early in life has become apparent from CBS figures. Last year, just over half of the adult Dutch population was overweight. More than 15 percent were obese. That number has increased significantly. In 1990, only one in three Dutch people was overweight. Also the overweight in children increases in the long run. Last year, 11.5 percent of 4 to 12-year-olds were overweight. 3.4 percent of them were obese.
Break the chain
Children who are overweight are at high risk of remaining overweight into adulthood. They then become overweight mothers, who pass the excess weight on to their daughters. This creates a situation that passes from generation to generation. And we don’t have to tell you how bad excess weight is for health. It increases the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and colon cancer. It is therefore important that the chain is broken. And that is best done at a very young age.
