Hundreds of genes have been found that increase the chance of a person being overweight and in some people faulty genes can cause severe obesity from a young age.
Dozens of other genes are linked to weight as well. Some, for example, cause people to just naturally store more fat. But it's still unclear exactly how much weight genes really do carry.
Most people probably have some genetic predisposition to obesity, depending on their family history and ethnicity. Moving from genetic predisposition to obesity itself generally requires some change in diet, lifestyle, or other environmental factors.
Body size is not controlled by only one gene, but many, making it hard to predict the size of individuals before they reach adulthood. To further complicate matters, it's not only genetics that influence body size. Factors like diet, nutrition, climate and health status all change how you grow.
Because some people just might be more naturally curvy than others. How do we know? Researchers found a certain genetic mutation which tells our body to store much more fat than necessary. And millions of Americans have it.
Can you be healthy and overweight? While being overweight does carry an increased risk of some health-related problems and diseases, in short — yes, you can be overweight and still healthy.
Biologically, we all have a set point weight range (typically between 10-20 pounds) that our bodies will fight to maintain. Our set point weight is largely based on genetics. The same way some people are tall and short. Some people are naturally larger or smaller.
Your Slow Metabolism:
When you have a slow metabolism, your body doesn't convert food into energy in sufficient quantities. So most of the food you eat is stored in the form of fats. This is the main reason why some people get fat even though they don't eat much.
Skinny fat people are often a normal weight (or underweight!) but because of their sedentariness, lack of muscle, or poor diet, they have a high percentage of body fat. Often, skinny fat people are at risk of certain medical issues as listed: Raised blood sugar, leading to insulin resistance or diabetes.
Some children are at greater risk for obesity because of genetic factors. They have inherited genes from their parents that make their bodies gain weight easily. This would have been a very good trait hundreds of years ago, when food was hard to find and people were very active.
They found that 67.7% of belly fat is attributed to diet and other environmental factors, while 17.9% is influenced by our genes.
“Thinness is a heritable trait”
So thin people not only stay slim “by not having the obesity genes, but they also have different genes that protect them” from gaining weight, she said. The research concludes that “thinness, like obesity, is a heritable trait.”
Humans, like chimps, need fat to cushion vital organs, insulate us from the cold, and buffer us from starvation. But early humans may have needed to plump up for another reason, the researchers say -- as an additional source of energy to fuel our growing, hungry brains.
Big boned means wider bones
Measure your wrist to find out if you're really big boned, since “body frame size is determined by a person's wrist circumference in relation to height,” according to the National Institutes of Health. More than 5 feet 5 inches tall and wrist size larger than 7.5 inches.
Quite simply, it means that we may misinterpret our current body size by drawing on memories of a time when we were thinner or larger. “Crucially,” adds Dr. Bell, “body size judgments are not always accurate and can be biased by various factors. Sometimes it's influenced just by the people we stand next to.”
The limitation of BMI is that this measurement does not distinguish fat from muscle. According to some research, more than half of Americans have a normal BMI but a high body fat percentage, which is known as normal weight obesity.
If your BMI is: under 18.5kg/m2 – you are considered underweight and possibly malnourished. 18.5 to 24.9kg/m2 – you are within a healthy weight range for young and middle-aged adults. 25.0 to 29.9kg/m2 – you are considered overweight.
The simple answer is no. There is no research to support the concept that not eating enough (or severe calorie restriction) can cause you to gain weight. Time and time again research has shown us that when we eat fewer calories than what we burn, we lose weight.
"Your body's very clever, it will adapt to a period of famine where it will preserve fat stores rather than burn them," she said. "But like I said, for most of us, it's very, very unlikely we would be putting our body into that type of state. It's a very, very extreme situation."
However, calorie intake should not fall below 1,200 a day in women or 1,500 a day in men, except under the supervision of a health professional. Eating too few calories can endanger your health by depriving you of needed nutrients.
Being the bigger person means always doing the right thing, even if someone else is being childish. Being the bigger person means keeping your eyes on the true goal and not getting distracted by the other person's pettiness and bad behavior.
In fact, many of the factors that determine our weight, such as the environment, genetics, age and gender, are beyond our control -- they were either set before we were born or are inescapable. The same can be said when people are dieting and aim to set a goal weight determined by the scale.
Maintaining them while also not allowing others to take you down emotionally and mentally is not easy, but it's at the core of being the bigger person – it allows you to know where you stand and ensure others know that too without being hurt by their words and actions, something which can be easily misunderstood.