Size, genetics and whether it's all our fault.

[OrmIrian]

How much importance does genetics play in your size(how fat you are, not build) as you age. It seems to me that the older I get the easier it is for me to keep weight off. I was expecting to end up like my mum - apple-shaped and increasingly big as the years go by. But it seems that I am taking more after my dad's family - tall, large built and quite slim. With no real attempt to do anything about it. And I've got friends who seem to get bigger as they age so that they resemble their mothers/fathers. Even though they don't eat hugely and take reasonable amounts of exercise.

Does it really make a difference? Or is it just down to your lifestyle.

rofl at 'currently channelling bullock'.

Yes it will be interesting. ATM mine are all reasonable slim although DS# has put on a bit in the last year. My DB got quite podgy as an early-teen but by the time he was 16 he had grown to more or less his full height (6' 5") and was like a stick. Wondering if DS will do the same.

I reckon trundling off to the local shop would burn a calorie or 2. A lot of people will only take any exercise if they really HAVE to. Also, it's much easier if all your food is pre-packed and pre-cooked, and you don't have to think very hard about it.

Supermarkets make it fantastically easy to be lazy, and there isn't really much manual work to be done. I agree with your idea about central heating, OrmIrian. We don't live under the threat of cold baths any more either!

It's confusing sometimes looking round the playground. More often than not fat children have fat parents. But then are they inheriting a genetic propensity to put on weight, or a bad diet and lack of exercise

I do now of one little girl though who has good diet and does plenty of physical activities but is large and has large parents.

I tend to think that genetics predispose you towards fatness or skinniness but you can sometimes change that to some extent with a lot of hard work. Having said that, sometimes all the hard work in the world won't help. When I tried to put weight on in my teens and twenties, it simply didn't work - I was eating more than 4000 calories a day and could never manage to get to as much as 8 stone (am about 5'5"). But my cousins who are all naturally tending towards the fat end of the scale have all managed to lose quite significant amounts of weight at various times in their lives, some more healthily than others!

For myself, I've always been thin, verging on skinny when I was younger, and never exercised or dieted (although I walk a lot, usually a couple of miles a day, and always have done). But I don't crave food like some people do, I don't find myself thinking 'oh, just one more biscuit' and I don't ever eat more than will fill me up. Is that genetics or is it how I was brought up - with two parents who are largely happy with their bodies and eat well and healthily, one fat and one skinny, and therefore never passed on any 'issues' to do with food? I suppose it must be a combination of both.