I KNEW it wasn't just all the pizza...

By Linda Carroll
MSNBC contributor
Sept 4, 2007

Janine Geredes is the kind of person many of us love to hate. No matter how much the Northern California woman eats, she never gets fat.

While the rest of us obsess over every morsel passing through our lips, convinced we’ll pack on the pounds if we let our guard down for just one moment, Geredes worries she’ll become unappealingly bony if she doesn’t eat enough.

“I’ve always had to work to keep weight on,” says Geredes, 43, who is 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 118 pounds. “When I was a growing up I was teased for being so thin. But now, people are always saying, ‘I wish I could eat like you. You stay so thin. You must work out a ton.’ I don’t.

“My son and daughter are the same way. I’ve always figured it was genetic.”

As it turns out, Geredes may be right.

Scientists now say they have discovered the “skinny” gene. And they’ve found this lucky batch of DNA in a variety of animals, according to a report published Tuesday in the journal Cell Metabolism.

"This gene is in every organism from worms to humans," says the study’s senior author, Dr. Jonathan Graff, an associate professor of developmental biology and internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. "We all have it. It's very striking."

Graff and his colleagues had been hunting for a gene that might naturally keep people thin. Eventually, they turned up a promising candidate in a gene that controls fat formation... (article continued here).

So BACK OFF - all you weight loss pundits! It's the freakin' genes!*

* - please note previous should be read dripping with sarcasm.