Genetic testing has been prevalent in the past couple of year. Some home kits such 23 and me has been used not only for ancestry, but also for health benefits. Diet based on DNA has been a component in Naturopathic medicine. The American Academy of Pediatric put out a statement the use of genetic testing, "‘strongly discourage the use of direct-to-consumer and home kit genetic testing of children because of the lack of oversight on test content, accuracy, and interpretation" (Caulfield, Borry, Toews, Elger, Greely, McGuire, 2015). Parents will go to great lengths to optimize the health of their children, it seems reasonable that children and adolescents are being or soon will be tested for the purpose of lifestyle and health promotion. Several companies are now offering genetic testing services for obesity predisposition that are targeted directly for use in children (Caulfield et. al, 2015). The problem with these test, are that parents can restrict their children's diet based on the genetic results. However, yoga would be a better way to reduce childhood obesity. Yoga is not intended for weight control, it more in mediation and relaxation. Weight loss has been a result, yoga has beneficial effects on mental and physical health in children and adolescents (Rathi, Raghuaram, Tekur, Joshi, Ramarao, 2018). Several schools of yoga have come up different modules of yoga practices that have shown a range of positive benefits on BMI in adults and children. Yoga has effect on serum leptin and serum ghrelin; there two hormones have been recognized to harbor major influence on the energy balance mechanism. Leptin is a mediator of long-term regulation of energy balance, suppressing food intake and thereby inducing weight loss. Although, both are Naturopathic in nature, for my age population yoga would be the best fit for children and the prevention of childhood obesity.
Caulfield, T., Borry, P., Toews, M., Elger, B. S., Greely, H. T., & McGuire, A. (2015). Marginally scientific? Genetic testing of children and adolescents for lifestyle and health promotion. Journal of law and the biosciences, 2(3), 627-644. doi:10.1093/jlb/lsv038
Rathi, S. S., Raghuaram, N., Tekur, P., Joshi, R. R., & Ramarao, N. H. (2018). Development and Validation of Integrated Yoga Module for Obesity in Adolescents. International journal of yoga, 11(3), 231-238.