If parents are obese in middle age, their children are likely to be obese when they reach middle age as well.
The New York Post, an American daily newspaper, cited a study from a Norwegian university on the 7th, reporting that “if parents were obese in middle age, their children are six times more likely to be the same when they reach that age.”
The study analyzed whether adults follow their parents’ past weight by collecting data from 2,068 adults aged 40-59 and their parents from 1994 to 1995 and 2015 to 2016.
The results showed that the adults’ weight was associated with their parents’ weight when they were of the same middle age. When a mother’s Body Mass Index (BMI) increased by 4 units, her child’s BMI increased by 0.8. Similarly, when a father’s BMI increased by 3.1 units, his child’s BMI increased by 0.74.
Moreover, if both parents were obese in middle age, their children were six times more likely to be obese in middle age compared to children with parents of healthy weight.
The risk was 3.44 times higher if only the mother was obese and 3.77 times higher if only the father were overweight.
The study’s lead researcher, Dr. Mari Mikkelsen, explained, “Children of obese parents were much more likely to be obese themselves in their 40s and 50s, long after leaving home. This association is possible due to a combination of genetics and the same eating and exercise habits factors inherited from their parents.
However, this study did not separately determine whether this was due to genetics or environment.
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