Genetics-- is that why you're overweight?

I do think genetics plays a huge role. I am East Indian..so I do have a tendency of carrying a bit more belly fat..but with that said...you still have to educate yourself on what is good/not good to eat.

I am indian as well and carry more belly fat when I gain weight.

My sister has always been skinny. My mom was skinny until child birth. 108# skinny.

Her reason for weight gain : american food. Indian food she ate all day not caring, until she came to america, and started eating our processed crap. She can lose 10-50 pounds in one summer by eating only indian food. Not calorie counting. She does it often and loses weight easily. NOT GENETICS. FOOD FOOD FOOD.

I love my food.. and up till recently though food was my problem, but i learned I am insulin resistant. Never a genetic problem in my family. Just means i need to watch what FOODS I eat, and ill be healthy.


My doctor told me one simple rule: dont eat foods that have ingredients you cant pronounce, and NO chain stores (wendys/applebees/olivegarden). Eat out at authentic resuraunts like sushi, greek, FRESH itallian.
Sounds smart and reasonable to me.

Gene probably play at least a partial role..in that they will dictate how our body stores fat and what not... but I wonder if its actually genes causing obesity... or learned behaviors (over eating, not exercising). I find that to be the bigger contributing factor... barring a medical condition.. it's your habits that are going to make you gain weight... your genes are just going to dictate how quickly it happens and where it goes

I support this answer.

Genetics gave me my linebacker shoulders and ability to build muscle like a man. Genetics did not make me overeat and overindulge in the sweets and junk food leading to my starting weight.

In the United States, at least, I think the reason for the rise in obesity is the ubiquitous nature of the automobile combined with an abundance of cheap and readily available processed foodstuffs.

People lived much differently forty years ago: they cooked their own food and they walked a lot.

That and the increased sedentary lifestyle people lead at home and in the workplace. A good example of that would be a lot of royalty over the centuries. They lived sedentary, luxurious lifestyles mostly and the portraits of them clearly show the weight. The ones active in their country's business aren't so much, though it's hard to tell since corsets and cinchers were so popular for a while.

And I can admit to that stuff being part of it. My mom worked an 8-5 job and rarely cooked. When I was in high school she had a job that had her working 7 days a week, dawn to dusk and several times until midnight because her boss overloaded her purposely and so I was left to order take out, pizza, eat frozen food, cook ramen noodles, etc. Sad as the excuse is I can't cook because we've never lived anywhere that had a fully working stove or oven.

I also have a sedentary job, I'm an artist that works out of my home. I sit for hours drawing or making jewelry and I'm also active on the internet. That's society these days.

Nope, we are overweight because we consume more than we burn. Genetics has an impact on the latter, and indirectly on the former IMHO (will power, self control etc), but it doesn't matter.

What people don't get is that being able to retain body fat is actually a genetic benefit.
Who is going to survive a famine?
Those who pack on the pounds easily. Our bodies are not designed for food that is so readily available in such abundant quantities. That is where the behavioral aspect comes into play. We now have choices and it is up to the individual to make the right ones.

Like she said, our bodies were originally designed to store fat because it was feast or famine. Now our lifestyle have become sedentary and due to modernization food is readily available (and most engineered to be high calorie! ). Genetics does determine your bone structure and where the fat is stored. HOWEVER it in no way is an excuse for being very overweight/obese.

My parents are obese, my sisters are obese, most of my relatives are obese. I have made choices in my life that lead to weight gain and I have recently made choices to fix that. As of yesterday I am at a normal weight. I don't think genetics had anything to do with it, I think falling into the lazy trap did.

as a genetics major, I wholeheartedly believe genetics plays a role but is not THE cause of being overweight. Yes, you are given a set of genenes when you are born, but which ones are expressed is determined by the environment you are raised in. So no, your genes do not make you fat; what you do with your genes (or dont do) makes you fat!

According to Tasco Reno the author of "Eat Clean" genetics only plays a role of 10% of that. So I believe it does play a role but I do not believe its as high as 60-70%. I think mostly it is due to nutrition and what we put in our bodies.

I think genetics play a role in your metabolism, e.g. some people burn more calories than other, all things being equal. Also, some people are going to have bigger frames than others as well. In the end though, baring a medical issue, it comes down to how much you eat and how much you burn.

Up until this year, I was always heavy, all the way from childhood. It was convenient for me to blame genetics, but in the end, when I watched how much I ate, and changed how active I was, I was able to lose the weight. I think obesity tends to run in families, because children learn bad eating and exercise habits from their parents. We also have the media and businesses pushing bad eating and exercise habits as well now to compound the problem.

I do think genetics plays a huge role. I am East Indian..so I do have a tendency of carrying a bit more belly fat..but with that said...you still have to educate yourself on what is good/not good to eat.

I am indian as well and carry more belly fat when I gain weight.

My sister has always been skinny. My mom was skinny until child birth. 108# skinny.

Her reason for weight gain : american food. Indian food she ate all day not caring, until she came to america, and started eating our processed crap. She can lose 10-50 pounds in one summer by eating only indian food. Not calorie counting. She does it often and loses weight easily. NOT GENETICS. FOOD FOOD FOOD.

I love my food.. and up till recently though food was my problem, but i learned I am insulin resistant. Never a genetic problem in my family. Just means i need to watch what FOODS I eat, and ill be healthy.


My doctor told me one simple rule: dont eat foods that have ingredients you cant pronounce, and NO chain stores (wendys/applebees/olivegarden). Eat out at authentic resuraunts like sushi, greek, FRESH itallian.
Sounds smart and reasonable to me.

I'm Indian as well. I've been asked multiple times if I'm pregnant. I just can't seem to lose the belly fat. Everyone in my family except my dad is overweight. I don't think its genes, I think its too much food. I think the places in which fat accumulates on my body (all over proportionately thankfully!) and the tendency to put on weight really fast with just 3 days of bad eating is because of genetics. The weight per se is not. Also, I wasn't skinny while I was in India, but I weighed 30lbs less. I put on all the weight in the US without my portion sizes increasing. So it must be something in the food... I tend to lose weight faster in India too!

I would say it's not a guarantee, but a definite contributing factor.

In the wrong environment of too many calories and too little exercise, it's a perfect storm for obesity. It's the path of least resistance in our modern world to become overweight if you are genetically inclinced to do so because food is over abundant and inexpensive while the need for physical labor remains low.

It's not an excuse for staying overweight, but I think it's fair to acknowledge that weight loss and keeping a healthy weight is much easier for some individuals than it is for others.

I just read it's only 20% somewhere..

I think it is a factor, but I'm fat because I play a game of how much I can shove in my mouth in the shortest amount of time.

Is everyone in the US related? too much inbreeding, I guess.

Nope, only in West Virginia.

You forgot Mississippi.

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Not inbred. UncleDad just told me so.