1. purepedantry
  2. An Unequivocal Statement about the Causes of Obesity

An Unequivocal Statement about the Causes of Obesity

By purepedantry on December 6, 2007.

Now that is pretty clear. This is from Miller and Silverstein in Nature Clinical Practice. It is in reference to childhood obesity:

There has been much debate about the cause of the current epidemic of obesity. Most experts agree that the increased prevalence of childhood obesity cannot be blamed on changes in either the environment or genetics alone. Environmental changes (i.e. nutrition and lifestyle) are, however, likely to be primarily responsible for the current epidemic, because it is not possible for the gene pool to change in less than one generation.

The authors go on to present some genetic caveats, and I noted before that obesity genetics is a complex subject.

However, purveyors of the belief that obesity is primarily genetic -- read: out of the patient or the doctor's control -- will always have to contend with the huge increases in childhood and adult obesity in a single generation. Whatever the genetic background, the cause of this increases is a change in environment, and the cure will be a change in environment.

I encourage you to read the whole review. It is really good, and I think it is free to the public..

Tags
Obesity and Heart Disease

More like this

The complex nature of prenatal programming of obesity
This article struck my eye because all of the literature I was familiar with said the opposite. The authors looked a weight gain in the mother during pregnancy and found that the children of the mothers who gained too much or even normal amounts of weight -- by the existing standards -- were more…
The Cuban anti-obesity program -or- a theory of the Inverted U of obesity rates
Castro's Cuba has seen a precipitous drop in obesity rates and in the deaths associated with cardiovascular risk: Cuba's economic crisis of 1989-2000 resulted in reduced energy intake, increased physical activity, and sustained population-wide weight loss. The authors evaluated the possible…
How genetic is obesity?
The NYTimes ran an excerpt of a book called Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss -- and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Gina Kolata. Having read the excerpt -- I haven't read the whole book -- I take issue with how Kolata frames the issue of the genetics of obesity. My problem…
Making sense of obesity genes
This is a quick follow-up to my other post on fat cells, which as it happens, isn't the only obesity-related story out today. Another paper found a common genetic variant that increases the risk of obesity in its carriers. A huge team of researchers scoured the genomes of almost 17,000 European…

What "huge increases in childhood and adult obesity in a single generation"? Perhaps, before rushing to untenable solutions, one should first accurately define the "problem" or question critically (skepticism) if there really is one at all.