We all know people who can eat whatever they want, not work out, and yet not gain a pound. Meanwhile, eating just one burger, or missing just one cardio session, can weigh much more heavily on others (pun intended). No doubt many of the differences we observe in weight gain and its relation to food intake and exercise are due to genetics.
Nick Furlotte and Shirley Wu have written a stunning article on why this happens.
They address key questions like:
How do fast food and exercise affect weight on average?
Why you should care if you’re apple or pear
More reason to exercise
Adding genetics to the picture
So how do our genetics influence all of this? We know that certain genetic factors predispose to obesity while others may protect against it. But a recent study published in PLOS Genetics adds a twist. The researchers showed that a set of 12 genetic factors known to be associated with obesity had less of an effect in people who exercised more and a larger effect in people who did not exercise as often.
We examined the same idea using the data from our customers and found similar results. In women who do not exercise, the genetic risk factors were associated with weighing 1.4 pounds more than average, while women who exercised weighed only 0.75 pounds more for each risk factor. In other words, lifestyle may actually influence the effect our DNA has on our weight.
As the size of the weight loss industry attests, weight and obesity are very challenging problems. But with more data, we’ll be able to unravel the relationship between food intake, exercise, genetics, and weight gain even more, hopefully leading to more personalized and effective healthy weight strategies.
You can read their entire article here
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