Genetics of Sedentariness

The genetic investigation of sedentary behaviour is only recent and greatly lags behind that of other health behaviours. This section will review the available literature on the genetics of sedentary behaviour. First, the classical twin design will be outlined, and twin studies will be summarized that decompose the variance of sedentary behaviour into genetic and environmental variance. Second, it will be shown how twin studies can contribute to a better understanding of the consequences of sedentary behaviour by explicitly testing causality between this behaviour and health outcomes. Finally, molecular genetic studies will be outlined that aim to find the actual genetic variants that affect sedentary behaviour. We conclude that sedentary behaviour is partly heritable (~30%) but can also be affected by the environment that is shared between siblings. Paucity of studies and heterogeneity in the age ranges studied and measures used make it challenging to provide stable estimates for heritability and environmental influences. To date, no genetic markers have been reliably associated with sedentary behaviour. C. Huppertz (*) Department of Public and Occupational Health, VU University Medical Center Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] E.J.C. de Geus Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] H.P. van der Ploeg Department of Public and Occupational Health, VU University Medical Center Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing AG 2018 M.F. Leitzmann et al. (eds.), Sedentary Behaviour Epidemiology, Springer Series on Epidemiology and Public Health, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-61552-3_27 617