The prevalence of obesity was 52 percent less common in boys whose mothers had weight loss surgery prior to getting pregnant and lost a substantial amount of weight, reducing their average BMI from 48 to 31, according to a recent study.

There was no difference in the prevalence of obesity among girls.

"The results demonstrate the importance of potentially modifiable epigenetic factors in the cause of obesity," the authors of the study concluded. Read the entire article | Email this article

"Overall, [more than] 600 genes, markers, and chromosomal regions have been associated or linked with human obesity," according to a 2005 paper. Read the entire article | Email this article

"About a third to half of the propensity towards obesity can be explained by genetic factors," according to Dr. Ashish Sinha from University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Read the entire article | Email this article

"Animal and twin studies indicate that 25–40% of the variability in human body weight may be accounted for by genetic factors," according to Lefebvre and Scheen (2001) as quoted in the paper by Flaa et al (2008). Read the entire article | Email this article

"Obesity and thinness are not solely determined by feeding behavior," concluded Kaveh Ashrafi, PhD, assistant professor of physiology, and his colleagues from the University of California, San Fransisco.

"Rather, feeding behavior and fat metabolism are coordinated but independent responses of the nervous system to the perception of nutrient availability."

"It is widely believed that environments that encourage excessive food intake and little physical activity promote development of obesity. However, extensive studies have revealed that body weight is not merely a passive consequence of environmental conditions but that a physiological system coordinates the complex mechanisms that regulate food intake and energy expenditure," Ashrafi says. Read the entire article | Email this article

People with variants of the FTO gene and of the MC4R gene are, on average, 8.5 pounds heavier than those who do not have these genetic variants according to a new study of 90,000 people. People with a variant of the MC4R gene were, on average about 3.1 pounds heavier. Those with a variant of the FTO gene were, on average, about 6.2 pounds heavier. And those with variants of both genes were, on average, about 8.5 pounds heavier.

"Dramatically, in a study of almost 6000 children, they found that the effects were almost double those seen in adults," the press release notes.

"Between the ages of four and seven, this additional increase in weight was the result, almost exclusively, of gain of fat tissue, and not due to gain in muscle or other solid tissues." Read the entire article | Email this article

The inheritability of obesity is 81 percent for males and 92 percent for females according to a paper from Denmark. Read the entire article | Email this article

Children are 6.5 times as likely to be obese if one parent is obese, and 18 times as likely to be obese if both parents obese as if neither parent are obese according to a study from Sweden. Read the entire article | Email this article

Genes account for 20 to 40 percent of the difference in body weight and "contribute to differences among patients in the resting metabolic rate and in weight gain in response to overeating" according to a new review paper on obesity from researchers at the University of Vienna in Wien, Austria and from the University of California San Francisco in San Francisco, California, USA. "Body fat distribution is also considered to be inherited," the paper notes. Read the entire article | Email this article