Lifestyle matters
Changing the so-called obesogenic environment remains the favoured weapon of anti-obesity campaigners worldwide. Calls for tuck-shop regulation, advertising restrictions and fat and sugar taxes sit alongside the knowledge that the FTO protein, a gene that probably saved our Stone Age ancestors from starvation, continues to force us to store fat.
Just as European males have grown taller because of better nutrition and less harsh environmental conditions, environment will continue to share the headlines with genes in making us who we are.
The Arizona Pimas developed some of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world after their traditional plant-based diet and farming lifestyle changed.
US nutritionist Michael Greger has compiled the latest randomised, controlled trials informing us about nutrition and dieting in his new book How Not to Diet, and environmental factors frequently emerge. He cites a famous Arizona study that compared obesity and diabetes prevalence between two groups of Pima Indians – one in Arizona and the other in neighbouring Mexico.
The Arizona Pimas developed some of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world after their traditional plant-based diet and farming lifestyle changed to a high-fat diet and sedentary lifestyle, while those of their Mexican neighbours were unchanged. Comparative studies concluded that even in genetically prone populations, the development of diabetes and obesity was largely determined by environmental considerations.