Are you heavy and are your kids heavy, are you thin and are your kids thin?

[Anonymous]

My maternal grandmother: short and chubby
My mother: short and chubby
My dad: short and lean
Me: short and chubby
Sister 1: short and chubby
Sister 2: short and thin (but works hard for it)

DH: medium height and thin
DD 1: medium and thin
DD 2: short and chubby
FWIW, DD 2 and I eat the most healthfully and get the most exercise in the family. I’d say that genetics definitely can play a role!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom is heavy, and its not genetics, it's because she eats like crap. She brought two batches of cookies to my house for Christmas. There are 6 of us. We don't need a dozen cookies each. She will buy bags of cookies and candy just to "munch" on.

Yep same here everyone e in my family is fat as was I until I moved away I eat healthy food with minimal sweets and my children do the same. I do not have a weight problem until I am around my family. You are what you eat.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the replies. To one pp that mentioned my attitude about eating might affect my DD, I didn't quite understand why do you think it might have a negative effect on her? She sees a therapist mostly for her ADHD, but recently DD brought this up and they are talking about it. I am not overeating or under eating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Geneticist here.

Yes, metabolism is partly inherited, which means that weight is too. You can take after your father or your mother.

"Partly" being the key word here. With appropriate nutrition, people can slim down. Developing good eating habits as a child is WAY MORE important than exercise, especially as modern Americans understand exercise (structured, in a gym, or at an extra-curricular activity). This is because Life comes in the way of that type of exercise, but train good eating habits, and you keep them for ever.

Natural exercise should be encouraged as much as possible - walking rather than driving, hiking trails on weekends, etc. But for many people this is impossible: They don't live in walkable areas and aren't comfortable spending their time outdoors in an unstructured way. This is unfortunate, because walking is really the best exercise, since it's something one can do every day, all one's life. There is research done currently on how strenuous exercise isn't as great as one thought for one's health (running, for example), and that gentle but daily exercise is better.

A rule of thumb: if you rely on intense exercise to maintain a healthy weight, it means you're eating too much. You will gain as soon as Life happens and you can't exercise, because changing eating habits takes effort.

+1 This seems spot-on!

[Anonymous]

Funny, I was just thinking about this the other day. I'm lean, but my daughter is genetically a little chunky. (95th percentile for height and weight at birth, and now she takes after her dad's side - they are muscular but kind of stout.) But most of my overweight friends have skinny babies. A friend of mine has always been on the larger side - like 5'10" and 180 - and she had a 5-lb baby, full term. But mine was 8 lbs.

I find this interesting.

[Anonymous]

I'm a little heavy (but within normal guidelines) and DH is thin. Both our kids are quite thin - my DS tries desperately to gain weight and just can't.

My niece's 3 kids are all very heavy and in that case it's diet. They drink sodas, have sweets constantly, and eat a white carb heavy diet. They were normal size until about age 6 and have ballooned since then. It's interesting because my niece was quite thin growing up but is larger now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, I must agree with genetic component if from a different perspective. My mom has asthma and now I am having it, and it is one of the reasons it is more difficult for me to lose weight. When it comes to breathing or being heavy, breathing comes first!

OP, how does being overweight help your asthma??? This makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

When I worked at a restaurant in college I definitely noticed this correlation - parents who came in and ordered reasonable amounts of food and left some on their plate had kids who did the same, and the whole family was generally on the thinner side. Then there were heavy parents who came in and ordered way too much food, which obviously to their children seemed like the normal amount of food because they didn't know any different. The kids also overordered and cleaned their plates. Very sad to see...it's such a disservice to do that to your children

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Funny, I was just thinking about this the other day. I'm lean, but my daughter is genetically a little chunky. (95th percentile for height and weight at birth, and now she takes after her dad's side - they are muscular but kind of stout.) But most of my overweight friends have skinny babies. A friend of mine has always been on the larger side - like 5'10" and 180 - and she had a 5-lb baby, full term. But mine was 8 lbs.

I find this interesting.

Being overweight is bad for your health. It’s very common for overweight people to have exceptionally small or large babies. Neither is healthy.

[Anonymous]

Mom: Short and thin/athletic (works out a lot)
Maternal grandmother: Short but stocky, but that is a recent thing, she is over 90 with 6 kids, she was a healthy weight most of her life.
Maternal grandfather: Tall and thin
Dad: Medium height but very skinny
Paternal grandmother: Medium height and very thin
Paternal grandfather: Medium height and very thin

DH: Tall and athletic
DH's parents: Tall and average build

Me: Short and thin
Will be interesting to see what Baby will be like...am guessing tall and thin

[Anonymous]

My child is only 19 months, but everyone in my and DH's family is thin (i.e all four parents, his two sibs, my sib, DH, and I).

[Anonymous]

I know a ton of UMC people who are fit and toned and their children are overweight. Not sure what that's about.

[Anonymous]

I there is a genetic factor and learned/copied behavior. I think children can get a lot of their eating habits from observing their parents' habits which may not be related to genetics (liked thyroid, metabolism).

DH and are a both overweight. DH's extended family is general normal/average weight. Mine is mixed between normal and overweight. Our boys are very fit and normal weight. But that is kind of the norm for boys in our family where they stay at normal/average weight during childhood because they are so physically active with sports. But can struggle with extra weight once they get into their 30s or 40s because their eating habits are generally poor.