Commentary: Should I Blame Mom or Dad? Identifying the Relative Contribution of Each Parent's Body Size to That of Their Offspring.

The author responds to an article that proposes a mechanism to statistically test the difference in the relative contribution of the size of each parent to a child's birth weight and rate of weight gain during infancy—two factors associated with the development of obesity—urging care in applying the study's methodological innovation. Epidemiological research that assigns a relative contribution of each parent to a child's weight poses the risk that some might use this information to split parents over an issue on which they need to be united in support of their child. The author also cautions that as researchers make advances in epidemiological research, they should remain vigilant about unintended harms.