Parents' lifestyles, rather than their genes, are primarily responsible for their children being overweight according to research by the Centre for Economic Performance, based at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Researchers compared the weight of biological and adopted children to that of their parents to determine whether children inherit their weight problems or whether they are the result of the environment they grow up in.
They found that when both adoptive parents are overweight, the likelihood of an adopted child being overweight is up to 21 per cent higher than when the parents are not overweight. Because these children are adopted their weight problems can be largely attributed to their parents' lifestyles rather than their genes.
In comparison, children who have two biological parents who are overweight were found to be 27 per cent more likely to be overweight ā just six percentage points more than adopted children, showing the relatively small influence of genetics
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