Study finds that children of people who were obese at age 17 are more likely to become obese at a young age
A study of the Israeli population found that children born to parents who were obese at age 17 were 77% more likely to be obese at that age.
Heritability of Body Mass Index Among Family Generations | Nutrition, Obesity, Exercise | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network
Offspring of people who were obese as teens are likely to be obese as well, study finds
Israel has had a conscription system for many years, and most citizens join the Israel Defense Forces at the age of 18. Because medical examinations are conducted for aptitude tests one year before enlistment, Israel has abundant pre-military medical examination data available across multiple generations, making it easy to compare data on blood relatives.
Gabriel Chodik and his colleagues from Tel Aviv University analyzed data from 1,343,649 people collected between 1986 and 2018 to investigate their health status at age 17.
As a result, it was found that children born to parents who were obese at age 17 were very likely to be obese at age 17, just like their parents (77%). In contrast, among children whose parents were of a healthy weight at age 17, only 15% were obese at age 17. Meanwhile, only 3.3% of children whose parents were thin at age 17 were obese.
The researchers also found that girls were generally more likely to be obese than boys if both parents were obese at age 17, and that children were also more likely to be obese if only their mothers were obese.
'This study highlights that parental weight status at age 17 is associated with offspring risk of obesity, highlighting the potential for parental factors to influence health outcomes in the next generation,' the researchers said.
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