Do You Inherit a Tendency to be Fat?

Nobody has really proven why some people eat a lot and are skinny, while other eat little and are fat. The simplistic explanation of eating less and exercising more to control weight doesn't work for all people. Researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands think that some people burn a greater percentage of the food that they eat than others. They showed that people who are fat burn a lower percentage of the calories that they take in than those who are skinny. They used deuterated palmitic acid, given with breakfast, to measure percentage of calories burned.
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Future studies must explain whether some people are genetically destined to be fat because they burn fewer calories, or whether any person who becomes fat will then burn fewer of the calories they take in. That could explain why overweight people continue to get fatter even if they eat less than their thinner peers. More