You are overweight- Are Genes to be blamed?

Most of us you have false assumptions about biological or genetic determinism & often hear statements like:

“ I will be overweight since my parents were overweight!”

“ It’s in my genes that I will be fat”

“ I cannot get over high calorie stuff”

Genetic determinism states that our physical & behavioural characteristics are determined by our genes. Under this view, what we are today is a product of our genes. If we carry fat gene (A allele of FTO gene), you are going to be obese. However on the other hand if we have R allele of ACTN3 gene, we are going to be super champ athlete.Such claims are just false & utter nonsense. If a person have two A Allele in obesity gene- it is linked to increase appetite, high cravings for food & 70% more likely exposed to obesity risk. However, it does not mean that your body composition is restrained by your DNA sequence. The issue with genetic determinism is that it equates all human beings with their social, moral & behavioural complexity with their genes. However, in practice we are much more than genes.  Here is why:

1. We are impacted by environment & culture:  You would have probably noticed that tall folks would have either one of them or both parents as tall. Your height is highly impacted by genetic components. However, you cannot give the entire credit to genes. Besides genes, diet also plays a major role. So even if you are the child of Tennis player Maria Sharapova, you would not grow as tall if you follow a poor diet. Environment factors such as diet & nutrition have a major role to play in determining your physical characteristics. The same logic applies for body weight & composition.  Even if you have double AA in its obesity gene, it is not necessary that you will be obese or overweight.  Your intensity of workout is encoded by your genetic code. So does that mean that healthy body weight is the outcome of your genetic code only? Not really, It is actually a combination of both your genes ,your environment & lifestyle that shall influence your body weight.

2. A single gene does not determine our body weight: It is highly unlikely that a single  gene can have a massive impact on physical traits. Complex activities such as athletic ability, capacity to build muscle & tendency of being overweight are determined by multiple genes .As a matter of fact your body weight is impacted by a lot of interacting factors such as metabolism, appetite, circadian rhythm- all of these are influenced by lot of different genes. Therefore, you cannot evaluate one gene-FTO gene & determine that you are destined to be fat. However knowing that you have a fat gene answers a lot of questions about your diet & gives insights about the intelligent choices you can adopt to maintain a healthy weight.
3. Increased risk for obesity does not mean higher penetration of Obesity gene: Genes which increases the risk of being overweight cannot be completely penetrated. With the exception of rate obesity syndrome, most obesity related genes have low to moderate penetration. It essentially means, people who have high genetic risk to obese does not have to face life long struggle with the extra bulge. To be put in simple words, those who have obesity genes- weight is not entirely not their fault but there is something they can do. Therefore a DNA test can provide insights about genetic risk to obesity as well as provide intelligent nutrition & exercise performance choices that help them to maintain a healthy lifestyle. This is what Passion for Fitness & Mapmygenome is trying to achieve by blending life-science & fitness.

Powered by Mapmygenome, Passion for fitness is studying gene analysis & lifestyle to provide personalised nutrition & sports performance solutions for time pressed folks.