There’s a common belief that your body type is completely dictated by genetics and that you can blame your parents for the way that you turn out. But is that true?
Twins Laid Some of the Groundwork for This
The earliest genetic studies into body type focused on twins. It was widely thought that if you could demonstrate that twins were likely to turn out roughly the same, then you could show that body type was determined by genetics. This is an odd theory because it assumes that there are other significant differences in twin’s lives, which might take over and distort one body or the other. In general, you would expect twins to be exposed to similar environmental and nurturing factors, which might also lead to the same body type. Despite the flaws, researchers did discover that there are some truths about hereditary body types:
- If you have “muscular genes” it is easier to develop muscle through exercise than if you don’t
- Where you carry excess fat on your body is likely to be similar to where your mother and father would carry it
Twins Also Disprove That Genetics Are Everything
Researchers in Canada also did some slightly more unusual observations on twins with marked differences in their habits. Here’s what they found:
- If one-twin exercises and the other does not, the exercising twin is much slimmer. They also noted that not one exercising twin in their study had a BMI of overweight or higher.
- 50% of your overall body shape is probably dictated by your diet and exercise routine and the other 50% by genetics
What Does That Mean?
What it means is simple. It means that you have a large amount of control over your health, happiness and shape. Sure, if you’ve got broad hips like your mum, that’s probably not going to change but at the same time, you don’t have to carry large amounts of fat on those hips unless you fail to take care of your health. We are not genetically pre-disposed to get fat or to be overweight. Unfortunately, we are busy and distracted by a million demands in the press of modern life. It’s easy to neglect your health without being lazy or foolish. Who has time to add up every calorie? And body shapes don’t change instantly they can take months or years to show a difference which fools us into thinking not much is going on at all. That’s why at Turmerix we want people to think about their health and focus on a “real food” approach to life. Instead of buying food that’s not healthy and is expensive, if you worked towards buying healthy, fresh food and using a little turmeric in your diet for the health benefits, we believe that you’d start feeling better nearly immediately. That you’d start to see a difference in just a few months and that maybe that would give you the confidence to get down to the gym and start taking control of your shape.
