Why some people find it harder to lose weight, according to science
The beginning of a new year is a time when tradition requires us to set goals for the coming months.
For many people, this may mean thinking about eating healthier and losing weight, especially after the festive period.
But while eating well and moving more is a great starting point, losing weight isn’t just about willpower and self-control. Scientists have proven that some find it easier to lose weight than others, and it all depends on your genetics.
Dr Giles Yeo, author and professor of molecular neuroendocrinology at the University of Cambridge Gene Eatingspoke Independent about how your genetic makeup can affect your attitude towards food and therefore your weight.
“Simply put, some people turn to food for a myriad of different reasons,” he said. “So they find it harder to say no, they eat more, and they will be larger than others.
“So for the same reason, some people find it harder to lose weight.”
Dr Yeo said there were “more than 1,000 genes” involved in our eating behaviors and these had a clear impact on our body weight. One of the most researched is the melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R), an important brain receptor that helps regulate appetite, body weight, and energy balance.
Scientists first discovered in 1998 that genetic mutations in this receptor were linked to obesity starting in childhood. Dr Yeo said today about 0.3 per cent of the general population is known to have one of several mutations in this gene. Extrapolated to the UK population, this number is more than 200,000.
“More than 200,000 people in this country will potentially have a broken oil sensor,” he said. “What this means is that they actually think they have less fat.”
Dr Yeo explained how the mutation can have a large and proven impact on people’s body weight. “When people with this mutation reach the age of 18, they are on average 18 kg heavier than those without it,” he said. “That’s five BMI points.”
Significantly, in the population struggling with health problems related to “severe obesity” and receiving treatment in a clinic, the percentage of those with the MC4R mutation increased from 2 percent to as high as 10 percent, he said.
“So if you go to the population with severe obesity, the number of people with the mutation is actually increasing,” he added.
Hunger cues are another factor that can affect how easy people find it to lose weight, according to Dr Yeo. he said Independent The brain generally needs two pieces of information to influence your hunger cues: how much fat you have and what you’re currently eating, and what you just ate.
It receives these by sensing hormones in your intestines and intestines; But people’s brains perceive them differently, so some people feel hunger signals differently than others.
However, Dr Yeo pointed out that genetics do not tell the whole story. Nearly 60 per cent of adults in the UK are overweight, according to the Health Foundation’s 2025 report, and this number has been rising steadily over the last decade.
He said both our food environment (essentially the choice of food available to us and the accessibility of processed foods) and our built environment, such as the prevalence of office-based jobs, also contribute significantly to some people’s struggles to lose weight.
“This has led to obesity becoming more common, but not everyone has obesity,” he said. “Genetics explains why some people find it difficult to say no to this energy-rich environment we have.”
Narratives of self-control and self-control can therefore be “unhelpful” in conversations about how to help society as a whole become healthier, according to Dr Yeo.
Instead, he believes we need to “fix the food landscape”; He said the government’s new ban on junk food ads appearing online at all times and on television before 9pm could help with this.
But Dr Yeo acknowledged that radical transformations in our supermarket offerings were something individuals did not have the power to choose. Instead, he encouraged people to focus on the food environment they can control: their own homes.
“If you’re trying to lose weight, you have to be honest with yourself about why you’re eating,” she said. “Some people eat because they are hungry, some people eat because they are stressed.
“So you need to know what you like to eat. What is your weakness? If you figure out what you like to eat under these circumstances, you can try reducing certain foods in your home.”
