Obesity Study: Overweight Men May Pass Obesity Traits to Kids

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Children of overweight men are at greater risk of becoming obese, a Danish study suggests, Univision Salud reports.

Danish researchers found “that sperm from normal weight and obese men differed in how some genes were turned ‘on’ or ‘off.’ And the differences were seen in gene regions linked to brain development and appetite control.”

This may explain why heavy dads often have heavy kids.

“At a basic level, most people know that overweight parents often have overweight kids,” said Anthony Comuzzie, a spokesman for the Obesity Society and a researcher at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio.

For the study, the team of researchers analyzed the sperm of 13 lean men and 10 overweight men.

“Our research could lead to changing behavior, particularly pre-conception behavior of the father,” said University of Copenhagen’s associate professor Dr. Romain Barrès.

In the U.S., over 39 percent of Latino children are overweight or obese.

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