Destiny Rides Again as Twins Overeat

Abstract

Does destiny indeed, as the Bard wrote, shape our ends (and middles)? In this issue of the Journal, Stunkard et al.¹ and Macdonald and Stunkard² have provided the most definitive answer to date to the question of whether childhood environment or genetic heritage is predominant in determining body-mass index in Western society. Similarly, Bouchard et al.³ at Laval University have concluded that destiny, in the form of our genetic makeup, has a great deal to do with the shape of our middles.Stunkard's group has drawn on the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging to evaluate the relation between body-mass . . .