Children: Obesity

Lord Winston Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords—

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, given that homo sapiens is a species that is programmed to eat carbohydrate and fat, what estimate have the Government made of how much childhood obesity is due to epigenetic factors rather than simply eating sugar and carbohydrate later on in life? Might this not be programming earlier in the generation perhaps as the result of previous generations’ environment? This is an essential point in understanding obesity.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord makes an interesting point to which I cannot give an answer from the Dispatch Box. It is clear that epigenetic factors are important. It is not just about behaviour: rather, it is also the genes that we have inherited from our forebears and the fact that we have entirely different nutrition and an entirely different way of life today from that of 70,000 years ago. Would it be all right if I write to the noble Lord and explain that more fully?