Family-line and socioeconomic factors in fatness and obesity.

here are hundreds of explanations for why T one individual is fatter than another, and why some people are truly obese. Explanations range from the sensory (involving differences in taste and olfactory acuity), to neuroendocrine, to metabolic, to the mode and amount of feeding in early infancy, to the composition of the diet. To some, obesity represents an ancient adaptation to cyclical fluctuations in food availability. To others, obesity simply reflects a lack of willpower or the summed results of food availability and decreased opportunities for energy expenditure. There is some evidence to support each of these explanations and dozens of others, including failures in the appetite-regulating mechanisms and individual differences in the deposition patterns of nonpigmented fat. Of all the data amassed on fatness levels and on obesity, as variously defined, two sets of observations command the most attention. The first is that above-average fatness and obesity are concentrated in particular families, ie, that fatness runs along family lines.’ The child of one obese parent is more likely to be obese,2 .increasingly so if both parents are obese,3 even more so if the grandparents are obese as The second observation has to do with socioeconomic status (SES) as measured by income, education, and occupation. Though poorer children of both sexes are leaner than their more affluent peer^,^,^ the