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So, I mentioned in a comment over at arden_ranger's place that I sat in on a neat seminar Wednesday about the genetics behind obesity. Here's a bit more with the explaining:

The guy talking was Michael Leitges. He spoke of a (the?) basic system underlying energy-storage-regulation. He was saying that, for example, a tall guy who works in a field and might need to take in 2500 calories a day, if his energy balance was off by even 1% (to be taking in 2525 calories a day), he'd be gaining 2 pounds a year. And yet, he said, people don't expect to gain two pounds a year, it's not the norm—so the body's energy regulation should when it's working have a better than 1% accuracy. That, I didn't buy; he had at the same time charts that showed how people tended to be fit in their 20s and then overweight by their 40s. What, does that all suddenly happen at 35? But anyway, most of the talk was about the wild mutant cases that lead to far more than 40 lbs per 20 years...

So, the basic building block of the energy-regulation system, as I gathered, is leptin. Leptin is a hormone made by fat cells, which floats through the blood to the brain, where its levels are constantly checked.

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