Abstract
Objective:
Children differ greatly in their ability to self-regulate food intake for reasons that are poorly understood. This laboratory-based twin study tested the genetic and environmental contributions to self-regulatory eating and body fat in early childhood.
Methods:
A total of 69 4–7 year-old same-sex twin pairs, including 40 monozygotic and 29 dizygotic pairs, were studied. Self-regulatory eating was operationalized as the percentage compensation index (COMPX%), assessed by a ‘preload’ challenge in which lunch intake was measured following a low- (3 kcal) or high-calorie (159 kcal) drink. Body fat indexes also were measured. The familial association for COMPX% was estimated by an intraclass correlation, and biometric analyses estimated heritability.
Results:
Children ate more at lunch following the low- compared with high-energy preload (P<0.001), although variability in COMPX% was considerable. Compensation was significantly poorer among African American and Hispanic compared with European American children, and among girls compared with boys. There was a familial association for self-regulatory eating (ρ=0.23, P=0.03) but no significant genetic component. In all, 22% of the variance in COMPX% was due to shared environmental ‘household’ factors, with the remaining variance attributable to child-specific ‘unique’ or ‘random’ environments. Poorer self-regulatory eating was associated with greater percent body fat (r=−0.21, P=0.04).
Conclusions:
Self-regulatory eating was influenced by environmental factors, especially those differing among siblings. The absence of a significant genetic effect may reflect the age of the sample or could be artifactual due to measurement issues that need to be considered in future studies.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Johnson SL, Krebs NF . Internal versus external influences on energy intake: are disinhibited eaters born or created? J Pediatr 2009; 155: 608–609.
Birch LL, Deysher M . Conditioned and unconditioned caloric compensation: evidence for self-regulation of food intake by young children. Learn Motiv 1985; 16: 341–355.
Birch LL, Fisher JO . Development of eating behaviors among children and adolescents. Pediatrics 1998; 101 (Part 2): 539–549.
Birch LL . The role of experience in children's food acceptance patterns. J Am Diet Assoc 1987; 87 (Suppl 9): S36–S40.
Sullivan SA, Birch LL . Pass the sugar, pass the salt: experience dictates preference. Dev Psychol 1990; 26: 546–551.
Rowe DC . The Limits of Family Influence. Genes, Experience, and Behavior. The Guilford Press: New York, 1994.
Faith MS, Keller KL . Genetic architecture of ingestive behavior in humans. Nutrition 2004; 20: 127–133.
Keller KL, Pietrobelli A, Must S, Faith MS . Genetics of eating and its relation to obesity. Curr Atheroscler Rep 2002; 4: 176–182.
Carnell S, Haworth CM, Plomin R, Wardle J . Genetic influence on appetite in children. Int J Obes (Lond) 2008; 32: 1468–1473.
Carnell S, Wardle J . Measuring behavioural susceptibility to obesity: validation of the child eating behaviour questionnaire. Appetite 2007; 48: 104–113.
Faith MS, Rhea SA, Corley RP, Hewitt JK . Genetic and shared environmental influences on children's 24-h food and beverage intake: sex differences at age 7 y. Am J Clin Nutr 2008; 87: 903–911.
Faith MS, Pietrobelli A, Nunez C, Heo M, Heymsfield SB, Allison DB . Evidence for independent genetic influences on fat mass and body mass index in a pediatric twin sample. Pediatrics 1999; 104 (Part 1): 61–67.
Cardon LR . Genetic influences on body mass index in early childhood. In: Turner JR, Cardon LR, Hewitt JK (eds). Behavior Genetic Approaches in Behavioral Medicine. Plenum Press: New York, London, 1995, pp 133–143.
Wardle J, Carnell S, Haworth CM, Plomin R . Evidence for a strong genetic influence on childhood adiposity despite the force of the obesogenic environment. Am J Clin Nutr 2008; 87: 398–404.
Koeppen-Schomerus G, Wardle J, Plomin R . A genetic analysis of weight and overweight in 4-year-old twin pairs. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 2001; 25: 838–844.
Birch LL, Fisher JO . Mothers' child-feeding practices influence daughters' eating and weight. Am J Clin Nutr 2000; 71: 1054–1061.
Johnson SL, Birch LL . Parents' and children's adiposity and eating style. Pediatrics 1994; 94: 653–661.
Pinker S . The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Viking: New York, 2003.
Llewellyn CH, van Jaarsveld CH, Johnson L, Carnell S, Wardle J . Nature and nurture in infant appetite: analysis of the Gemini twin birth cohort. Am J Clin Nutr 2010; 91: 1172–1179.
Plomin R, Crabbe J . DNA. Psychol Bull 2000; 126: 806–828.
Plomin R, Owen MJ, McGuffin P . The genetic basis of complex human behaviors. Science 1994; 264: 1733–1739.
Birch LL, Deysher M . Caloric compensation and sensory specific satiety: evidence for self regulation of food intake by young children. Appetite 1986; 7: 323–331.
Johnson SL, Taylor-Holloway LA . Non-Hispanic white and Hispanic elementary school children's self-regulation of energy intake. Am J Clin Nutr 2006; 83: 1276–1282.
Faith MS, Keller KL, Johnson SL, Pietrobelli A, Matz PE, Must S et al. Familial aggregation of energy intake in children. Am J Clin Nutr 2004; 79: 844–850.
Kuczmarski RJ, Ogden CL, Guo SS, Grummer-Strawn LM, Flegal KM, Mei Z et al. 2000 CDC Growth Charts for the United States: methods and development. Vital Health Stat 11; 2002: 1–190.
Goran MI, Allison DB, Poehlman ET . Issues relating to normalization of body fat content in men and women. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 1995; 19: 638–643.
Rietveld MJ, van Der Valk JC, Bongers IL, Stroet TM, Slagboom PE, Boomsma DI . Zygosity diagnosis in young twins by parental report. Twin Res 2000; 3: 134–141.
Faith MS, Keller KL, Matz P, Johnson SL, Lewis R, Jorge MA et al. Project Grow-2-Gether: a study of the genetic and environmental influences on child eating and obesity. Twin Res 2002; 5: 472–475.
Neale MC, Cardon LR . Methodology for Genetic Studies of Twins and Families. Kluwer: Dordrecht, 1992.
VanItallie TB, Yang MU, Heymsfield SB, Funk RC, Boileau RA . Height-normalized indices of the body's fat-free mass and fat mass: potentially useful indicators of nutritional status. Am J Clin Nutr 1990; 52: 953–959.
Breen FM, Plomin R, Wardle J . Heritability of food preferences in young children. Physiol Behav 2006; 88: 443–447.
Dunn J, Plomin R . Why are siblings so different? The significance of differences in sibling experiences within the family. Fam Process 1991; 30: 271–283.
Farrow CV, Galloway AT, Fraser K . Sibling eating behaviours and differential child feeding practices reported by parents. Appetite 2009; 52: 307–312.
Keller KL, Pietrobelli A, Johnson SL, Faith MS . Maternal restriction of children's eating and encouragements to eat as the ‘non-shared environment’: a pilot study using the child feeding questionnaire. Int J Obes (Lond) 2006; 30: 1670–1675.
Saelens BE, Ernst MM, Epstein LH . Maternal child feeding practices and obesity: a discordant sibling analysis. Int J Eat Disord 2000; 27: 459–463.
Harris JR . The Nurture Assumption. The Free Press: New York, 1998.
Salvy SJ, Kieffer E, Epstein LH . Effects of social context on overweight and normal-weight children's food selection. Eat Behav 2008; 9: 190–196.
Klump KL, McGue M, Iacono WG . Differential heritability of eating attitudes and behaviors in prepubertal pubertal twins. Int J Eat Disord 2003; 33: 287–292.
Klump KL, McGue M, Iacono WG . Age differences in genetic and environmental influences on eating attitudes and behaviors in preadolescent and adolescent female twins. J Abnorm Psychol 2000; 109: 239–251.
Klump KL, Suisman JL, Culbert KM, Kashy DA, Sisk CL . Binge eating proneness emerges during puberty in female rats: A longitudinal study. J Abnorm Psychol 2011; 120: 948–955.
Johnson WG, Grieve FG, Adams CD, Sandy J . Measuring binge eating in adolescents: adolescent and parent versions of the questionnaire of eating and weight patterns. Int J Eat Disord 1999; 26: 301–314.
Steinberg E, Tanofsky-Kraff M, Cohen ML, Elberg J, Freedman RJ, Semega-Janneh M et al. Comparison of the child and parent forms of the Questionnaire on Eating and Weight Patterns in the assessment of children's eating-disordered behaviors. Int J Eat Disord 2004; 36: 183–194.
Farooqi IS, Keogh JM, Yeo GS, Lank EJ, Cheetham T, O'Rahilly S . Clinical spectrum of obesity and mutations in the melanocortin 4 receptor gene. N Engl J Med 2003; 348: 1085–1095.
Wardle J, Llewellyn C, Sanderson S, Plomin R . The FTO gene and measured food intake in children. Int J Obes (Lond) 2009; 33: 42–45.
Frayling TM, Timpson NJ, Weedon MN, Zeggini E, Freathy RM, Lindgren CM et al. A common variant in the FTO gene is associated with body mass index and predisposes to childhood and adult obesity. Science 2007; 316: 889–894.
Tanofsky-Kraff M, Han JC, Anandalingam K, Shomaker LB, Columbo KM, Wolkoff LE et al. The FTO gene rs9939609 obesity-risk allele and loss of control over eating. Am J Clin Nutr 2009; 90: 1483–1488.
Haworth CM, Butcher LM, Docherty SJ, Wardle J, Plomin R . No evidence for association between BMI and 10 candidate genes at ages 4, 7 and 10 in a large UK sample of twins. BMC Med Genet 2008; 9: 12.
Llewellyn CH, van Jaarsveld CH, Boniface D, Carnell S, Wardle J . Eating rate is a heritable phenotype related to weight in children. Am J Clin Nutr 2008; 88: 1560–1566.
Carnell S, Wardle J . Appetite and adiposity in children: evidence for a behavioral susceptibility theory of obesity. Am J Clin Nutr 2008; 88: 22–29.
Johnson SL . Improving Preschoolers' self-regulation of energy intake. Pediatrics 2000; 106: 1429–1435.
Ogden CL, Carroll MD, Flegal KM . High body mass index for age among US children and adolescents, 2003-2006. JAMA 2008; 299: 2401–2405.
Kumanyika S . Nutrition and chronic disease prevention: priorities for US minority groups. Nutr Rev 2006; 64 (Part 2): S9–14.
Keller KL, Assur SA, Torres M, Lofink HE, Thornton JC, Faith MS et al. Potential of an analog scaling device for measuring fullness in children: development and preliminary testing. Appetite 2006; 47: 233–243.
Faith MS, Kermanshah M, Kissileff HR . Development and preliminary validation of a silhouette satiety scale for children. Physiol Behav 2002; 76: 173–178.
Fisher JO, Kral TV . Super-size me: portion size effects on young children's eating. Physiol Behav 2008; 94: 39–47.
Fisher JO, Liu Y, Birch LL, Rolls BJ . Effects of portion size and energy density on young children's intake at a meal. Am J Clin Nutr 2007; 86: 174–179.
Rolls BJ, Engell D, Birch LL . Serving portion size influences 5-year-old but not 3-year-old children's food intakes. J Am Diet Assoc 2000; 100: 232–234.
Wansink B, van Ittersum K, Painter JE . Ice cream illusions bowls, spoons, and self-served portion sizes. Am J Prev Med 2006; 31: 240–243.
Rolls BJ, Roe LS, Halverson KH, Meengs JS . Using a smaller plate did not reduce energy intake at meals. Appetite 2007; 49: 652–660.
Wansink B, van Ittersum K . Bottoms Up! The influence of elongation on pouring and consumption volume. J Consumer Res 2003; 30: 455–463.
Wansink B, Painter JE, North J . Bottomless bowls: why visual cues of portion size may influence intake. Obes Res 2005; 13: 93–100.
Wardle J, Guthrie CA, Sanderson S, Rapoport L . Development of the Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2001; 42: 963–970.
Kissileff HR . Where should human eating be studied and what should be measured? Appetite 1992; 19: 61–68.
Acknowledgements
We thank the families who enrolled in ‘Project Grow-2-gether’ for their generous and enthusiastic participation. This project was supported by the NIH grant K08-MH01530 awarded to Dr Faith. This study is funded by a grant K08 MH-01530 (MSF).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Faith, M., Pietrobelli, A., Heo, M. et al. A twin study of self-regulatory eating in early childhood: estimates of genetic and environmental influence, and measurement considerations. Int J Obes 36, 931–937 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2011.258
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2011.258
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
The relationship between COVID-related parenting stress, nonresponsive feeding behaviors, and parent mental health
Current Psychology (2023)
-
Pediatric Eating Behaviors as the Intersection of Biology and Parenting: Lessons from the Birds and the Bees
Current Nutrition Reports (2018)
-
Gene-Environment Interplay in Child Eating Behaviors: What the Role of “Nature” Means for the Effects of “Nurture”
Current Nutrition Reports (2018)
-
A mixed methods protocol for developing and testing implementation strategies for evidence-based obesity prevention in childcare: a cluster randomized hybrid type III trial
Implementation Science (2017)
-
Friends and social contexts as unshared environments: a discordant sibling analysis of obesity- and health-related behaviors in young adolescents
International Journal of Obesity (2017)