Genetic and environmental influences on childhood obesity

Genetics play an indisputable role in childhood obesity onset. At the same time, the striking prevalence increase in recent decades speaks to the power of the environment-in this case, to induce obesity in predisposed children. Greater insights will be achieved by understanding how specific genes and environmental factors synchronize to promote childhood obesity. Incorporating energy intake measures into genetic designs should provide novel insights into the formation of child eating patterns and eating-body composition relationships.