Research
Hormonal
Fetal malnutrition (low birth weight) combined with postnatal caloric abundance causes irreversible metabolic programming (thrifty phenotype) that predisposes individuals to insulin resistance and obesity in adulthood.
If you were born small or experienced early childhood malnutrition, your body may be biologically programmed to store fat aggressively when food is abundant. Focus on environmental controls (food availability) and early childhood nutrition rather than relying solely on adult willpower.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
This explanation is sometimes called the thrifty phenotype: the calorically deprived fetus and later child responds by hoarding calories as an environmental response... Physiologically, the hypothesized chain of events is that fetal malnutrition leads to relative tissue resistance to insulin, low birth weight, childhood fat deposition, later childhood and early adult insulin resistance, and ultimately adult diabetes.
Why this rating
Supported by multiple epidemiologic studies (Dutch famine, Finnish data) and animal models cited in the text.
Source
Obesity and Diabetes in Vulnerable Populations: Reflection on Proximal and Distal Causes
Lucy M. Candib · The Annals of Family Medicine · 2007
DOI 10.1370/afm.754
narrative_reviewCited 174×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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