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Pediatrics

Common etiological architecture underlying reward responsiveness, externally driven eating behaviors, and BMI in childhood: findings from the Gemini twin cohort

International Journal of Obesity volume 44, pages 2064–2074 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Background

Studies have reported that impulsivity predicts childhood BMI and that the association is mediated by eating behaviors. One aspect of impulsivity—potentially crucial in the obesity context—is reward responsiveness, which may predispose to responsiveness to palatable food cues. The behavioral susceptibility theory hypothesizes that genetic susceptibility to obesity operates partly via genetically determined differences in appetite regulation. Reward responsiveness may therefore be one of the neuro-endophenotypes that mediates genetic susceptibility to obesity.

Objective

To test whether reward responsiveness, eating behaviors, and child BMI share common genetic architecture.

Methods

We examined reward responsiveness, eating behaviors, and BMI in 5-year-old children from Gemini, a UK birth cohort of 2402 twin pairs born in 2007. All measures were collected by parent report. Reward responsiveness was derived from the Behavioral Approach System. Compulsion to eat and eating for pleasure was measured with the “food responsiveness” scale of the Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Wanting to eat in response to environmental food cues was measured with the “external eating” scale of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Maximum-likelihood structural equation modeling was used to establish underlying common genetic and environmental influences.

Results

There were significant positive phenotypic correlations between all traits except for reward responsiveness and BMI. Genetic factors explained the majority of the association between food responsiveness and external eating (74%, 95% CI: 61, 87), whereas common shared environmental factors explained the majority of the associations between reward responsiveness with both food responsiveness (55%, 95% CI: 20, 90) and external eating (70%, 95% CI: 39, 100).

Conclusions

Our study demonstrates the importance of common environmental factors in the shared etiology between reward responsiveness and childhood eating behaviors. However, the common etiology underlying both reward responsiveness and BMI is unclear, as there was no phenotypic correlation between reward responsiveness and BMI at this age. Further longitudinal research needs to detangle this complex relationship throughout development.

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Fig. 1: Parameters estimates from the full ACE twin models for reward responsiveness, food responsiveness, external eating, and body mass index (BMI).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Gemini families for participating in the study.

Funding

The Gemini 5-year data collection was supported by a Cancer Research UK program grant (C1418/A7974), awarded to Prof. Jane Wardle, who died in 2015. CL was employed on the grant during the time of the study. Gemini is currently funded by an MQ Fellows award to CL (MQ17-4 Llewellyn). CK and JT are part funded by the NIHR Mental Health Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. CK is an NIHR clinical lecturer and has also previously received salary support from Novo Nordisk UK Research Foundation and Marie Curie Fellowship. MH is supported by a skills development fellowship from the Medical Research Council UK (MR/T027843/1). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Wellcome Trust, the NHS, the NIHR, CRUK, MQ, MRC, or the Department of Health. The funders did not have a role in the study design, data collection/analysis/interpretation, or preparation of this manuscript.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Carol Kan, Moritz Herle

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, UK

    Carol Kan, Moritz Herle, Janet Treasure & Frühling Rijsdijk

  2. Institute of Population Health Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

    Andrew Jones

  3. Research Department of Behavioral Science and Health, University College London, London, UK

    Clare Llewellyn

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CK, MH, FR, JT, and CL designed the research; CK, MH, and FR performed the statistical analyses; and all authors wrote and revised the manuscript for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Kan, C., Herle, M., Treasure, J. et al. Common etiological architecture underlying reward responsiveness, externally driven eating behaviors, and BMI in childhood: findings from the Gemini twin cohort. Int J Obes 44, 2064–2074 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-020-0605-8

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