Scientists say mothers may pass fat genes to kids: Oh, so it has nothing to do then with us being couch potatoes and eating crap?
There’s that age-old question of what came first: the chicken or the egg. Strangely enough, this question might be related to that other one: ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’
Scientists now seem to think that the chicken didn’t do so because it wanted to buy a Big Mac with extra fries:
Obesity could increase with each generation because overweight mothers give birth to offspring who have a tendency to become heavier, medical experts have warned. A team of scientists believe that the genetic mechanisms that control the weight of a baby may be changed if the mother is obese before and during pregnancy. This change could lead in turn to the baby becoming heavier than normal.
Look, I don’t know enough about biology and genetics to say anything intelligent about this latest report – but I know enough to recognize a certain type of bullshit when it’s shouting at me in tabloid headline fashion.
So, it may well be that there are bio-genetic reasons why fat mamas give birth to fat babies but that doesn’t answer the question how these mothers got so fat themselves. Chicken and egg, see?
Or not.
The mothers and grandmothers of these fat mamas weren’t routinely fat. Hell, that was the generation that lived through World War Two and the decidedly lean forties and fifties. Obesity wasn’t a societal problem then and yet, their children became the fat kind of mamas who now pass on the blubber baton to their kids.
So, what does that tell us? Well, mainly it tells us that in those decades, in the West at least, our societies became more affluent, our jobs and hobbies more sedentary and our urban environments less and less pedestrian and child friendly. Add to this the arrival of fast food franchises, TV & other commercials and the fact that most time at home is spent in front of our TVs, videos and computers and you have a perfect recipe for broad scale & well-spread obesity.
That’s how we got from baby boomers, to generation X, to generation Michelin Man. No bio-genetics required for that one at all. Genes can explain a lot but one should also never underestimate environmental influences. Nature & nurture and all of that – and while there may exist Big Mac genes, chances are that getting fat has more to do with the fact that the nurturing business has been left in the hands of a certain clown that’s shovelling his shit into the open & eager mouths of our children.
Obviously, it is much nicer to blame our parents and the wild card of genetics – but those thin post war parents had no thin genes they passed on to their kids. Or not so you would notice, after a few decades of fast food consumption. Same thing with those fat genes. Again, I’m no expert, so maybe they’re there but – as long as we don’t stuff our faces and our children’s faces with crap – not so that we would notice.
End of sermon.
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