ArticlePLoS genetics2025
The association between parental BMI and offspring adiposity: A genetically informed analysis of trios.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Strong Family-Level Clustering of Adolescent Weight Status Despite Limited Associations with Individual Parental Anthropometric and Metabolic Characteristics.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Interaction Between Genetic Risk and Parental Feeding Practices in the Prediction of Overweight Across Adolescence.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2026Article
- Genetic risk for high body mass index before and amidst the obesity epidemic: Cross-cohort analysis of four british birth cohort studies.PLoS genetics · 2026Article
- Inadequate Gestational Weight Gain Among Saudi Mothers and Pregnancy Outcomes: Riyadh Mother and Baby Follow-Up Study (RAHMA Explore).Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Breaking the Cycle of Malnutrition: The Role of Food and Nutrition Literacy in Addressing Food Insecurity Among Lebanese Adolescents.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Data Resource Profile: Genomic data in multiple British birth cohorts (1946-2001)-linkage with health, social, and environmental data from birth to old age.International journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundChildren with obesity are more likely to have parents with obesity than those without. Several environmental explanations have been proposed for this correlation, including foetal programming and parenting practices. However, body mass index (BMI) is a heritable trait; child-parent correlations may reflect direct inheritance of adiposity-related genes. There is some evidence that mothers' BMI associates with offspring BMI net of direct genetic inheritance, consistent with both intrauterine and parenting effects, but this requires replication. Here, we also investigate the role of fathers' BMI as well as offsprings' diet as a mediating factor.
methodsWe used Mendelian Randomization (MR) with genetic trio (mother-father-offspring) data from 2,630 families in the Millennium Cohort Study, a UK birth cohort study of individuals born in 2000/02, to examine the association between parental BMI (kg/m2) and offspring birthweight and BMI and diet measured at six-time points between ages 3y and 17y. Paternal and maternal BMI were instrumented with polygenic indices (PGI) for BMI conditioning upon offspring PGI. This allowed us to separate direct and indirect ("genetic nurture") genetic effects. We compared these results with associations obtained using standard multivariable regression techniques using phenotypic BMI data only.
resultsMothers' and fathers' BMI were positively associated with offspring BMI to similar degrees. However, in MR analysis, associations between father's BMI and offspring BMI were close to the null. In contrast, mother's BMI was consistent in MR analysis with phenotypic associations. Maternal indirect genetic effects were between 25-50% the size of direct genetic effects. There was limited and inconsistent evidence of associations with offspring diet and some evidence that mothers', but not fathers', BMI was related to birthweight in both MR and multivariable regression models.
conclusionsResults suggest maternal BMI may be particularly important for offspring BMI: associations may arise due to both direct transmission of genetic effects and indirect (genetic nurture) effects. Associations of father's and offspring adiposity that do not account for direct genetic inheritance may yield biased estimates of paternal influence. Larger studies are required to confirm these findings.
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