My son is very tall and skinny - always has been. He just doesn’t care much about food, and won’t eat if he isn’t hungry. Like, really hungry. Otherwise - nah, he’ll pass. I am overweight and love food. I was also very thin as a child and tween, also didn’t care to eat. Something changed when I was a teen - I started over ridding my body’s hunger cues and just eating when it was time to eat, or eating junk for comfort. I got fat and still battle it now. I am hoping my son continues to listen to his body, as hard as it is now to see him be underweight and turning his nose up at dinner.

I have always been thin, but I developed very, very early. I was off the growth charts in height and weight as a toddler, got my period at 10, and was my full adult height by 12. My parents are both slim. DH is not chubby or overweight, but he has a muscular and broad build (even more so than the average man). FIL is slim and MIL is obese. MIL would be the first to tell you her weight problem is down to eating too much. As a young woman, she was not obese, but was never super thin. In her twenties, I'd guess that she was a contemporary size 10.

DD is a tall and heavy toddler, and we'll see if she's an early developer like me or stockier like her dad and grandma.

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!

You'd probably breathe better carrying less weight.

Anonymous wrote:I am just curious, DD, teen, told me that heavy kids use this as an excuse, that this is genetic, ie. their parents are heavy, so they are genetically heavy? Is this true? And the opposite is also true? (yes, DD is seeing a therapist to prevent future food issues) For us, it is kind of true but not fully true, DH is really skinny and DS has a hard time putting on weight at all, almost 6' and barely 130lbs and 18. DD is normal as am I, not really skinny, muscular though, I used to be skinny but am now just regular in mid 40s. My mom, however, is very heavy, dad not so much. Apart from my mom most of my family is/was skinny. My BIL( my sister's DH) is very heavy, his parents are very heavy. But, DH has a very heavy dad and yet , DH is rail thin. Other SIL and BIL are pretty heavy, and their kids are one obese, the other approaching obese. But, other BIL is normal, SIL heavy and kids are normal to thin. The reason I bring ILS more is that my sister doesn't have kids. I am prone to think it is not genetic due to these inconsistencies. WDYT? Genetic or lifestyle?
I am not trying to judge, I love food more than anything and think that I have been lucky to be able until now(yes, not anymore at my age) to eat almost anything and not be extremely heavy, so I can see an argument for nature in my own case. I am at the point where I would rather be somewhat heavy and enjoy food, rather than be miserable with little to no food to be skinny.

This is a false dichotomy.

Does your daughter have an eating disorder? I would be very careful with saying things like this to her because she will think it is one or the other, and she may decide that she'd rather be skinny but the only way to do that is to not eat. And then you are setting her up for a miserable life.

I think the better path is to try as best as you can to always talk about food in terms of fuel and nutrition and encourage an active lifestyle because no matter how skinny or fat you are, moving your body more is better long term.

Just my two cents.

I'm thin and the boys are too. DH and his mom are obese but they eat horribly, it's not metabolism but food choices. FIL is thin - he exercises and diets. My parents are thin but they're European.

I am thin and DH and DS are both slightly heavy. But we eat differently (no meat and not a ton of sugar for me).

My immediate family (parents, siblings) is thin/normal weight.
I was thin/normal until my mid-30s, now I am heavy.
My kids are all thin/normal.

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.

I don't think the research is conclusive. There's also research that shows that supplements and even diet don't help prevent osteoporosis. Weight-bearing exercise does. That suggests that strength training is important, especially as we age.

Walking is not enough, unless you are walking at a brisk pace. Before modern inventions, humans did more strenuous activity -- lifting things, moving things, pushing things, pulling things. Walking alone doesn't make up for an absence of those activities.

People should walk more, but the notion that walking alone is enough or is the ideal form of exercise is flat out wrong. I also think it's wrong to assume the only thing people can do as they age is walk. Muscles atrophy. If people keep strength training, they are able to do more as they age because they won't lose as much muscle and bone, which are the things that make people unable to do things. Walking alone is not going to prevent muscle and bone loss.

One super skinny kid, one somewhat husky one. I’m 20lbs overweight since the pregnancies, come from a family with lots of overweight but mixed in with normal weights. DH has been a fairly steady normal weight tho starting to get a bit of a belly.

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.

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!

I think there is a genetic component. It would be weird for there not to be, when there is for everything else.

But genetics is not destiny. A child who comes from a non-musical family can work hard and have a greater chance of developing those skills. A child who comes from a fat family can work hard and have a greater chance of not being fat. There's a limit though. There's only so tall you're going to be able to get, and it wouldn't surprise me if the same holds true for other build issues. Your skeletal structure will change a bit based on weight, as I understand it, but if you were born to be long armed or broad shouldered, that's sort of the luck of the draw.

My daughter, who is 5, is on the heavier side--like 10% height and 70% weight, but she is only 6. Still, its just like I was. She has a serious sweet tooth and food fixation. My son does not, is skinny and always moving. I was like this too as a kid--was always hungry, was always looking for a cookie, got hangry easily. Was short, like she was, was underweight at birth (she was under 5 lbs) but then put on fat at age 3, like she did. I was later diagnosed with hypoglycemia and hypothyroid in my 20s but not before going through years of feeling horrible about my body, starting around age 7. I wasn't really that overweight, but was not rail thin like most of my friends. I try to offer the kids a balanced diet but without a lot of restrictions. My son will stop eating when he's full, and though he loves dessert, doesn't fixate on them. My daughter will eat and eat, and at times I wonder if she's really hungry, or what, and is fixated on sweets and carbs. I have wondered about genetic links, and things like gut bacteria. She has a lot of allergies too and skin issues, as do I.

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.

I am just curious, DD, teen, told me that heavy kids use this as an excuse, that this is genetic, ie. their parents are heavy, so they are genetically heavy? Is this true? And the opposite is also true? (yes, DD is seeing a therapist to prevent future food issues) For us, it is kind of true but not fully true, DH is really skinny and DS has a hard time putting on weight at all, almost 6' and barely 130lbs and 18. DD is normal as am I, not really skinny, muscular though, I used to be skinny but am now just regular in mid 40s. My mom, however, is very heavy, dad not so much. Apart from my mom most of my family is/was skinny. My BIL( my sister's DH) is very heavy, his parents are very heavy. But, DH has a very heavy dad and yet , DH is rail thin. Other SIL and BIL are pretty heavy, and their kids are one obese, the other approaching obese. But, other BIL is normal, SIL heavy and kids are normal to thin. The reason I bring ILS more is that my sister doesn't have kids. I am prone to think it is not genetic due to these inconsistencies. WDYT? Genetic or lifestyle?
I am not trying to judge, I love food more than anything and think that I have been lucky to be able until now(yes, not anymore at my age) to eat almost anything and not be extremely heavy, so I can see an argument for nature in my own case. I am at the point where I would rather be somewhat heavy and enjoy food, rather than be miserable with little to no food to be skinny.