title: No correlation between adiposity and food intake: why are working class children fatter?
abstract: Many studies have failed to show a correlation between individual energy intake and obesity. However, the prevalence of overweight is higher in populations with higher caloric intake. In this study on a population of French children, no correlation was found between energy intake and individual corpulence (wt/ht2 index or skinfold thickness), but a higher proportion of overweight children was found in lower social classes where energy intake is traditionally higher. A hypothesis is proposed to account for this apparent contradiction: the typical lifestyle or diet in a given population challenges individual adaptive capacities; the more caloric the socially accepted diet, the higher the proportion of individuals who are challenged beyond their adaptive threshold. Socially determined factors such as a high calorie diet act in a permissive way in the development of obesity although the caloric intake of obese individuals may be no different from that of nonobese peers.
mesh_terms: D001827:Body Height; D001835:Body Weight; D002648:Child; D004032:Diet; D002149:Energy Intake; D005220:Fathers; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology*; D009790:Occupations; D012885:Skinfold Thickness; D012923:Social Class