Assortative marriages by body mass index have increased simultaneously with the obesity epidemic

Frontiers in Genetics

Volumn 3, Issue JUL, 2012, Pages

  Ajslev, Teresa A ^a   Ängquist, Lars ^a   Silventoinen, Karri ^b   Gamborg, Michael ^a   Allison, David B ^c   Baker, Jennifer L ^a   Sørensen, Thorkild I A ^a  

^a The Capital Region   (Denmark)

^b UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI   (Finland)

^c UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM   (United States)

Author keywords

Assortative mating; Body mass index; Childhood; Human genetics; Obesity; Overweight; Phenotype

Indexed keywords

EID: 84876030328     PISSN: None     EISSN: 16648021     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2012.00125     Document Type: Article

References (32)

1. Allison, D. B., Neale, M. C., Kezis, M. I., Alfonso, V. C., Heshka, S., and Heymsfield, S. B. (1996). Assortative mating for relative weight: genetic implications. Behav. Genet. 26, 103-111.
2. Baker, J. L., Olsen, L. W., Andersen, I., Pearson, S., Hansen, B., and Sørensen, T. I. A. (2009). Cohort profile: the Copenhagen school health records register. Int. J. Epidemiol. 38, 656-662.
3. Baker, J. L., Olsen, L. W., and Sørensen, T. I. A. (2007). Childhood body-mass index and the risk of coronary heart disease in adulthood. N. Engl. J. Med. 357, 2329-2337.
4. Beyerlein, A., Toschke, A. M., and von Kries, R. (2010). Risk factors for childhood overweight: shift of the mean body mass index and shift of the upper percentiles: results from a cross-sectional study. Int. J. Obes. (Lond.) 34, 642-648.
5. Cole, T. J., Bellizzi, M. C., Flegal, K. M., and Dietz W. H. (2000). Establishing a standard definition of childhood overweight and obesity worldwide: international survey. BMJ 320, 1240-1243.
6. Clark, P. J., and Spuhler, J. N. (1959). Differential fertility in relation to body dimensions. Hum. Biol. 31, 121-137.
7. Crow, J. F., and Felsenstein, J. (1968). The effect of assortative mating on the genetic composition of a population. Eugen. Q. 15, 85-97.
8. Danielsdottir, S., O'Brien, K. S., and Ciao, A. (2010). Anti-fat prejudice reduction: a review of published studies. Obes. Facts 3, 47-58.
9. Di Castelnuovo, A., Quacquaruccio, G., Donati, M. B., de Gaetano, G., and Iacoviello, L. (2009). Spousal concordance for major coronary risk factors: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Am. J. Epidemiol. 169, 1-8.
10. Fontaine, K. R., Robertson, H. T., Holst, C., Desmond, R., Stunkard, A. J., Sørensen, T. I. A., and Allison, D. B. (2011). Is socioeconomic status of the rearing environment causally related to obesity in the offspring? PLoS ONE 6:e27692. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027692
11. Hebebrand, J., Wulftange, H., Goerg, T., Ziegler, A., Hinney, A., Barth, N., Mayer, H., and Remschmidt, H. (2000). Epidemic obesity: are genetic factors involved via increased rates of assortative mating? Int. J. Obes. Relat. Metab. Disord. 24, 345-353.
12. Herman, K. M., Craig, C. L., Gauvin, L., and Katzmarzyk, P. T. (2009). Tracking of obesity and physical activity from childhood to adulthood: the Physical Activity Longitudinal Study. Int. J. Pediatr. Obes. 4, 281-288.
13. Jacobson, P., Torgerson, J. S., Sjöstrom, L., and Bouchard, C. (2007). Spouse resemblance in body mass index: effects on adult obesity prevalence in the offspring generation. Am. J. Epidemiol. 165, 101-108.
14. Katzmarzyk, P. T., Hebebrand, J., and Bouchard, C. (2002). Spousal resemblance in the Canadian population: implications for the obesity epidemic. Int. J. Obes. Relat. Metab. Disord. 26, 241-246.
15. Katzmarzyk, P. T., Malina, R. M., Perusse, L., Rice, T., Province, M. A., Rao, D. C., and Bouchard, C. (2000). Familial resemblance in fatness and fat distribution. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 12, 395-404.
16. Li, L., Law, C., Lo, C. R., and Power, C. (2009). Intergenerational influences on childhood body mass index: the effect of parental body mass index trajectories. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 89, 551-557.
17. McAllister, E. J., Dhurandhar, N. V., Keith, S. W., Aronne, L. J., Barger, J., Baskin, M., Benca, R. M., Biggio, J., Boggiano, M. M., Eisenmann, J. C., Elobeid, M., Fontaine, K. R., Gluckman, P., Hanlon, E. C., Katzmarzyk, P., Pietrobelli, A., Redden, D. T., Ruden, D. M., Wang, C., Waterland, R. A., Wright, S. M., and Allison, D. B. (2009). Ten putative contributors to the obesity epidemic. Crit. Rev. Food Sci. Nutr. 49, 868-913.
18. Morgan, D. K., and Whitelaw, E. (2008). The case for transgenerational epi-genetic inheritance in humans. Mamm. Genome 19, 394-397.
19. Morgan, D. K., and Whitelaw, E. (2009). The role of epigenet-ics in mediating environmental effects on phenotype. Nestle Nutr. Workshop Ser. Pediatr. Program. 63, 109-117.
20. Olsen, L. W., Baker, J. L., Holst, C., and Sørensen, T. I. A. (2006). Birth cohort effect on the obesity epidemic in Denmark. Epidemiology 17, 292-295.
21. Pearson, S., Hansen, B., Sørensen, T. I. A., and Baker, J. L. (2010). Overweight and obesity trends in Copenhagen schoolchildren from 2002 to 2007. Acta Paediatr. 99, 1675-1678.
22. Plomin, R. (1990). The role of inheritance in behavior. Science 248, 183-188.
23. Power, C., Pouliou, T., Li, L., Cooper, R., and Hypponen, E. (2011). Parental and offspring adiposity associations: Insights from the 1958 British birth cohort. Ann. Hum. Biol. 38, 390-399.
24. Rokholm, B., Baker, J. L., and Sørensen, T. I. A. (2010). The levelling off of the obesity epidemic since the year 1999-a review of evidence and perspectives. Obes. Rev. 11, 835-846.
25. Rokholm, B., Silventoinen, K., Tynelius, P., Gamborg, M., Sørensen, T. I. A., and Rasmussen, F. (2011). Increasing genetic variance of body mass index during the Swedish obesity epidemic. PLoS ONE 6:e27135. doi: 10.1371/journal. pone.0027135
26. Sear, R., and Marlowe, F. W. (2009). How universal are human mate choices? Size does not matter when Hadza foragers are choosing a mate. Biol. Lett. 5, 606-609.
27. Silventoinen, K., and Kaprio, J. (2009). Genetics of tracking of body mass index from birth to late middle age: evidence from twin and family studies. Obes. Facts 2, 196-202.
28. Silventoinen, K., Kaprio, J., Lahelma, E., Viken, R. J., and Rose, R. J. (2003). Assortative mating by body height and BMI: Finnish twins and their spouses. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 15, 620-627.
29. Speakman, J. R., Djafarian, K., Stewart, J., and Jackson, D. M. (2007). Assortative mating for obesity. Am. I Clin.Nutr. 86,316-323.
30. Thomsen, B. L., Ekstrom, C. T., and Sørensen, T. I. A. (1999). Development of the obesity epidemic in Denmark: cohort, time and age effects among boys born 1930-1975. Int. J. Obes. Relat. Metab. Disord. 23, 693-701.
31. Toschke, A. M., von Kries, R., Beyerlein, A., and Ruckinger, S. (2008). Risk factors for childhood obesity: shift of the entire BMI distribution vs. shift of the upper tail only in a cross sectional study. BMC Public Health8, 115.
32. Wardle, J., Volz, C., and Golding, C. (1995). Social variation in attitudes to obesity in children. Int. J. Obes. Relat. Metab. Disord. 19, 562-569.