Seven genes have been found to be linked to physical inactivity, which gives your aversion to the gym a legitimate explanation. Photo / Getty Images
Seven genes have been found to be linked to physical inactivity, which gives your aversion to the gym a legitimate explanation. Photo / Getty Images
Would you rather bingewatch a Netflix series than hit the gym? If you thought you'd exhausted your excuses for avoiding getting off the couch, now you have one more: you can blame your genes.
Because researchers at Oxford University have analysed the DNA of more than 90,000 people and concluded genetics could be the reason some of us are more prone to a sedentary existance than others.
Seven genes were found to be linked to physical inactivity, which gives your aversion to the gym a legitimate explanation, and sheds light on why some of us may experience more sleep and health problems than others.
Testing methods involved using activity monitors to measure the time individuals spent sitting, sleeping and moving around.
The participants then submitted DNA samples to be assesed in comparison to their movements throughout the course of their day.
Fourteen genes were also found to be directly linked to physical activity.
"How and why we move isn't all about genes," said the study's leader, Dr Aiden Doherty. "But understanding the role genes play will help improve our understanding of the causes and consequences of physical inactivity."
DNA could be the reason you love spending your Saturday streaming an entire TV series while your partner wants to go for a run. Photo / Getty Images
Other than an excuse for laziness, it is believed studying the DNA could offer new insight into obesity, a growing public health concern.
The findings will allow the question of whether genes make people obese and therefore inactive, or inactive and therefore prone to obesity, to be explored.
Statistics from the New Zealand Ministry of Health show two thirds of Kiwi children and young people currently meet the recommended hour-a-day of exercise.
But 52 per cent of New Zealand women are failing to meet requirements of at least 30 minutes of activity on five or more days a week.
Meanwhile, Kiwi men are slightly more active on the whole, with 45 per cent failing to achieve enough physical activity over the course of a week.
The Oxford study also revealed a connection between physical activity genes and genes with links to neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease.
Professor Michael Holmes of Oxford University added: "This provides scientists with a wonderful opportunity to learn much more about how genes and environment interact in our daily lives, causing us to move as we do, and possibly putting us at increased risk of disease."
