The Effects Of Obesity On The Health - 1393 Words

Accumulated excess body fat that may harmfully effect health is defined as obesity (Royal College of Physicians, 1998). Obesity is a developing condition within the population that already affects 1 in 4 adults in England (NICE, 2006). Internationally, being overweight is linked to a range of harmful health problems such as diabetes and heart disease. Obesity can be explained through the use of the nature-nurture debate, as it can be caused by both elements. In this essay, examples and facts will be discussed which show that obesity is a result of heredity and environmental factors. It is commonly believed that sometimes obesity runs in families, which means some people are more susceptible to weight gain than others for genetic reasons†¦show more content†¦The data was collected from 1963 to 2002. Results found that correlation of their BMI between identical twins ranged from 0.65 to 0.83. Poulsen and Vaag’s study (2003) based on the Danish population twins found that there was a genetic influence on body mass as twins inherited fat mass of 40-70% from their parents. These were much stronger than those between non-identical same sex twins which were correlation of 0.31 to 0.58. Such findings indicate that genetic background plays a crucial part in obesity. Studies have found that there are genes which increase our desire to eat fatty foods. One version of an obesity gene, FTO, showed in a study that it made fatty foods more tempting and altered levels of the hunger hormone, ghrelin (Frayling et al., 2007). Each individual has two copies of the FTO gene- one from each parent. Each copy comes in either a high or a low risk form. Those with two high risk copies of the gene are thought to be 70% more likely to become obese compared to those with low-risk genes. In the study, two groups of men were tested, all with normal weight. However, the varying factor between the groups was that one had the high risk FTO genes and the other was low risk. First few tests involved comparing levels of ghrelin before and after a meal in 10 men from each group. Findings suggested that ghrelin did not fall significantly afterwards in high risk participants, although their ghrelin levels began to rise