An international team of researchers has discovered that there may be a significant genetic component to the growing trend of childhood obesity. To this point the issue has been widely attributed to poor diet and inactive lifestyle, but now Dr. Struan Grant of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and collaborators say that may not be the whole story.
For the study, the researchers examined the genetic map of 5,530 children, all of whom were in the 95th percentile of body mass index. They found seven different genetic regions that were common amongst the obese children that were not found in over 8,000 control children with BMI's below the 50th percentile.
"There is indeed a genetic signature of childhood obesity," Grant told MedPage Today. "It's not purely lifestyle."
Grant adds that obese adults showed much less significant genetic data linked to obesity. "They were there, but they were not as strong as in the kids."
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