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It's child obesity Nature vs nurture...

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Running head: CHILD OBESITY: NATURE VS. NURTURE

Mohammed Shoaib

Child Obesity: Nature vs. Nurture When boarding off a plane into a western country such as the United States of America, there’s a lot to take notice that indicates the current health status of a people. For example, the variety and number of fast food restaurants are immediately noticeable and the type of ads that are displayed such as methods for weight loss also plays a role in portraying the status of health of a people. With so many indicators pointing towards the issue of weight, it should come as no surprise that obesity is fast becoming an epidemic condition. Although obesity was once considered to primarily affect adults, it now can be commonly seen amongst children. Therefore, the question that begs to be considered is what is causing this new health phenomenon, is nature to blame, nurture to blame or both? This paper aims to discuss the role both nature and nurture plays in the growing concern of childhood obesity. Nature Nature can be defined as a factor which affects offspring by the virtue of it being passed on from the parents. An example could be the set of genes with which a child inherits from their parents. Research suggests a child’s inherent genetics may cause them to be susceptible to weight gain (Farooqi & O’Rahilly, 2006). For example, children of obese parents are five times more likely to become obese themselves (Bouchard, 2009). To understand how obesity is inherited, it is important to identify and understand the molecules that are thought to be involved in contributing to obesity. One such protein is called leptin. To put it simply, leptin is the hormone that was discovered in 1994 which researchers found to act like a sensor in the body providing signals to the brain triggered by the amount of fat content in the body (Yeo & Oswal, 2010). The hormone works in a way where if there is enough fat content in the body, then the hormone levels will increase signaling the brain to tell the body not to eat anymore. However, if there is

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not enough fat content, then the leptin concentration will decrease which signals the brain to start eating more (Yeo & Oswal, 2010). When researchers discovered this particular function of leptin in the human body, it started to be known as the obesity hormone and is highly studied at the moment with the worldwide emergence of obesity. Numerous research investing the link between obesity and inheritance have shown that there is a correlation between the two. The families where in which this correlation was studied were found to have low levels if any at all of the protein hormone leptin. When studying the genetics of these families where obesity was suspected to be running in the family, researchers discovered that the gene for this hormone was in some way altered or mutated and passed on to the next generation. In one particular family, two obese cousins who came from a family where intermarriage was high, were studied and found to have virtually no leptin in their body. When researchers took a closer look at both cousins’ genes for leptin, they found a type of mutation which was homozygous in nature and basically alerted the researchers to conclude that this mutation runs in the family (Farooqi & O’Rahilly, 2006). To further investigate the role of leptin, researchers decided to study the hormone in reverse. They took three children who were congenitally deficient in the leptin hormone and studied the effect of recombinant leptin treatment on their fat content. The study had a positive outcome where the children had reduced appetites where they were less hungry and showed to have a decrease in weight and fat content (Farooqi & O’Rahilly, 2006). Nurture Nurture in the role of obesity can be defined as the external factors which influence the body. It can be a number of things such as physical activity and nutrition, factors which can be controlled. For example, with nutrition, the type of foods that are eaten is entirely done by

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choice. People choose to either eat healthy or eat poorly. A person may choose to eat healthy by having proper portions of different food groups thereby fulfilling the nutritional requirements as recommended by United States Department of Agriculture’s choosemyplate.gov. On the other hand, a person may choose to have unhealthy eating habits such as eating fast foods everyday and snacking on highly processed and/or high fat foods that have very little nutritional value. A person may also eat more energy so to speak than what the body requires in energy thereby increasing build-up of body fat (Ghouse, Barwal & Wattamwar, 2016). This imbalance of nutrition and energy is just one factor attributable to the cause obesity. According to the World Health Organization, it is estimated that 10% of the obese population are children alone under the age of 15 making this a major issue to be dealt with since it plays as a high-risk factor for numerous diseases such as hyperlipidemia, hypertension, sleep apnea, cancer, diabetes and much more (Ghouse, Barwal & Wattamwar, 2016). Furthermore, physical activity also plays a part in the development of obesity. The more physical activity, the more the basal metabolic rate will increase, and the more energy spent thereby keeping a check on weight. The opposite is true if you decrease the level of activity. To further illustrate this point, a research study has been done correlating television viewing with people being overweight (Janssen, Katzmarzyk, Boyce, Vereecken & Mulvihill, 2005). It could also be noted that people who watch television are at risk for gaining weight because they are bombarded with advertisements for various things which include foods as well such as snacks. The advertisements are made to entice the viewer and convince them that those foods and snacks are absolutely necessary (Janssen et al., 2005). Now it could be postulated that not only does television viewing decrease the amount of physical activity, but it also plays a psychosocial role on the person by encouraging them to buy products that may not be healthy for them. It could

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also be said that one of the reasons for a decrease in physical activity is safety. Many parents feel that they cannot safely allow their children to play outdoors as they once used to when they were younger. Children require a safe and monitored environment outside of their homes where they can enjoy physical activity. There are many areas in the United States which do not offer such areas for this purpose and so the only real physical activity a child may have is once or twice a week during the school week during recess or physical education. Conclusion There are so many factors which can contribute to the growing epidemic of childhood obesity. Each factor is important in playing its part for obesity. However, there are ways to help control and decrease obesity, for this reason, although nature does play a significant part in obesity, nurture plays a much bigger role for the reason that nurture is something that can be controlled by the person. Nurture involves the environment, it involves factors which can be controlled such as physical activity and food. People living with conditions that contribute to their weight gain can control other factors to help maintain their weight such as setting a goal to exercise for an appropriate amount of time during the week or to eat appropriate proportions of healthy foods and finding healthy alternatives for snacks. For children, it is important for parents to find creative alternatives to engage the child in accomplishing these goals to keep obesity at bay. There are many ways that nurture can be controlled and influenced for the better in order to control weight gain in children.

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Reference: Bouchard, C. (2009). Childhood obesity: are genetic differences involved? American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 89(5). doi:10.3945/ajcn.2009.27113c Farooqi, I. F. & O’Rahilly, S. (2006). Genetics of obesity in humans. Endocrine Reviews, 27(7). doi:10.1210/er.2006-0040 Ghouse, M. S., Barwal, S. B., & Wattamwar, A. S. (2016). A Review on Obesity. Health Science Journal, 10(4), 1-5. Janssen, I., Katzmarzyk, P. T., Boyce, W.F., Vereecken, C., Mulvihill, C., Roberts, C., Currie, C. & Pickett, W. (2005). Comparison of overweight and obesity prevalence in school-aged youth from 34 countries and their relationships with physical activity and dietary patterns. Obesity Reviews, 6(2). doi:10.1111/j.1467-789X.2005.00176.x Oswal, A & Yeo, G. (2010). Leptin and the Control of Body Weight: A Review of Its Diverse Central Targets, Signaling Mechanisms, and Role in the Pathogenesis of Obesity. Obesity, 18(2). doi:10.1038/oby.2009.228...