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posted by takyon on Thursday February 23 2017, @12:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the thanks-folks dept.

Around 35-40 per cent of a child's BMI -- how fat or thin they are -- is inherited from their parents, a new study has found. For the most obese children, the proportion rises to 55-60 per cent, suggesting that more than half of their tendency towards obesity is determined by genetics and family environment.

The study, led by the University of Sussex, used data on the heights and weights of 100,000 children and their parents spanning six countries worldwide: the UK, USA, China, Indonesia, Spain and Mexico. The researchers found that the intergenerational transmission of BMI (Body Mass Index) is approximately constant at around 0.2 per parent -- i.e. that each child's BMI is, on average, 20 per cent due to the mother and 20 per cent due to the father.

[...] The study also shows how the effect of parents' BMI on their children's BMI depends on what the BMI of the child is. Consistently, across all populations studied, they found the 'parental effect' to be lowest for the thinnest children and highest for the most obese children. For the thinnest child their BMI is 10 per cent due to their mother and 10 per cent due to their father. For the fattest child this transmission is closer to 30 per cent due to each parent.

The intergenerational transmission of body mass index across countries (DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2016.11.005) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday February 23 2017, @07:56PM

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Thursday February 23 2017, @07:56PM (#470864)

    It doesn't matter that nobody was arrested. The important thing is that people THINK they will get arrested or otherwise in to trouble.

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  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 23 2017, @08:30PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday February 23 2017, @08:30PM (#470878) Journal

    Yeah, because they are being lied to.