Why Your Body Type Isn’t All Down To Your Parents
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