Relative Importance of the Effect of Family Environment and Heredity on Obesity

In a study using data from 254 families with 546 non-biologically related children and 10 337 families with 25 554 biologically related children an analysis of variance technique was used to evaluate the effect of family environment and heredity for children ages 4-11. Family environment accounted for 32% of the variation in obesity if all children were used and more than 39% of the variation in obesity using subgroups of children similar with respect to sex and age. The estimate of heritability was quite low, only 11%. These results suggest that family environment, which consists of such things as parental example and child rearing techniques, has an important effect on childhood obesity.