Depending on our genetic profile, diet would have a different impact on our health. For example, researchers from King’s College London (United Kingdom) investigated the relationship between a child’s genetic predisposition to weight and the dietary practices of its parents. In their study, published in PLOS Genetics As of November 20, they estimate that genetic factors could account for up to 80% of the bodily differences between individuals.
Genes connected to parental behavior
The goal for scientists was to challenge the idea that a child’s weight reflects the way their parents feed them. Rather, they support the thesis that parents adopt feeding styles in response to their children’s natural body weight, which is ultimately largely influenced by genetics.
To develop their reasoning, the researchers used the “Twins Early Development Study”, which included data from 4,500 pairs of twins born in England and Wales between 1994 and 1996. They found that many of the genes that influence individual differences in weight are also connected to parental behaviors. In fact, genes linked to high weight are said to be connected to restrictive eating practices, while genes linked to lower weight are connected to food pressure.
Diet control in response to natural weight
Clearly, it was believed that a strict restriction resulted in weight gain because children overeat when the restriction is no longer in effect. It was also believed that pressuring a child to finish whatever was on the plate caused anxiety, poor appetite and thus compromised weight gain. But ultimately, it would be the opposite: the natural tendency of the child to a higher or lower weight would push the parents to opt for these ways of eating.
Even within families where the genetic predispositions of non-identical twins differed, parents were more restrictive with the twin who tended to carry more pounds and put more pressure on the one who had less. “Blaming parents for controlling their diet too much can be unfair. But it is difficult to know if these natural strategies are useful, harmful or without consequence on the weight of the child in the long term ”, concludes Dr. Clare Llewellyn, author of the study cited by Science Daily.
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