This research will be extremely controversial

The new research done by Professor Jane Wardle who is one of the directors of the Cancer Research Health Behaviour Research Centre in the United Kingdom shows that parental influence is possibly not such a big reason why children are overweight or obese. According to Professor Wardle being overweight or obese was attributed to the children’s genes in 77 percent of cases and to the environment the children are brought up in in 23 percent of cases.  She came to her conclusions after studying more than 5,000 pairs of twins.

Very often when people see overweight children they blame parents for instilling bad eating habits in the children and possibly overeating themselves which sets the children a bad example. Professor Wardle says that it is clear from her research that parents must not be taking all the blame for the excessive weight of their children and that the genetic susceptibility of the children is far more important.

This research will be extremely controversial and is likely to be received with howls of protest from other academic institutions and individuals. Professor Warhol said that parents could not purely blame the reason why their children are overweight on their genes but should just be aware that certain children were more likely to become overweight than others. If anything parents who have children who are susceptible to become overweight should make a more determined effort to ensure that they eat healthily and get exercise.

Children who are overweight when they are young are likely to stay that way for the rest of their adult lives and therefore it is extremely important that good and healthy eating habits are instilled in them when they are very young. The rising levels of childhood obesity in the United Kingdom are therefore likely to produce thousands of overweight adults over the next couple of decades which could end up costing the National Health Service millions of pounds.

Ukmedix News has been advising the British government to invest in health programs to teach children and their parents about healthy eating as an investment in the future of the country.