A study conducted by the Peninsula Medical School, a partnership between the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth and the NHS in Devon and Cornwall, has found a strong obesity link between mothers and their daughters and fathers and their sons, but not across the gender divide.
The study, published in the International Journal of Obesity involved 226 families and found that obese mothers were ten times more likely to have obese daughters. For fathers and sons there was a six fold rise in the likelihood of being obese. The researchers did not draw a link between fathers and their daughters and mothers and their sons.
Researchers believe that this link indicates that obesity is behavioural rather than being genetic. This is because they say that with obesity it is unusual for genetics to influence children along gender lines. Instead, they say the explanation for the link may be down to ‘behavioural sympathy’, where daughters may emulate the lifestyles of their mothers and sons may copy those of their fathers.
Height and weight measurements were taken over the three-year study for both children and parents. Of the eight year old daughters whose mothers were obese, 41 percent were also obese, compared to 4 percent of girls with normal weight mothers. For boys, 18 percent of the group with obese fathers were obese, compared to 3 percent of the normal weight group. In both of the obese groups the link only affected the same sex parent and child.
The researchers say that most of the emphasis on obesity in the UK has been placed on education of children so far and that in future it should be placed on the parents.
The Department for Health launched their Change4Life campaign earlier this year and it aims to target both parents and children in the fight against obesity.