If she really is overweight, that doesn't automatically mean it's a genetic condition. Most of the time, people are overweight because of something they're doing wrong (like eating the wrong foods, too much food, lack of exercise...). So, OP and her daughter are probably both doing something wrong.

Actually most of the time it's a combination of both genes and lifestyle - and the lifestyle things can be pretty hard to change for some people, if they don't have the time or knowledge to cook proper meals every day for example. It's a subject I'm pretty interested in and have done reading on things like epigenetics and tests done on mice that affect the standard body weight of their offspring (basically if the mother's body thinks it's in a hostile environment without much nutrition, her children will be more likely to put on weight so they won't starve, and the body is most likely fooled by a lot of the things we put in food) - I'm actually medically underweight and can't do a thing to put more on even though it means I suffer from health problems. But hey, apparently my body is acceptable, so who cares, right? What's more, the diets that most people use to lose weight only work temporarily, and are difficult to stick to permanently because they're so stringent, but if you get into a cycle of dieting-not dieting-dieting it also convinces your body that food supply is not guaranteed and it starts to stock up. If we were less obsessed with weight and more focused on health, there would be far fewer problems. They're too very different issues and the battle to control weight in a way it's just not meant to be controlled does far more harm than good.

I see what you're saying, and do agree with it, but I was trying to make a slightly different point. While genetics do cause a good chunk of the problem, I still believe activity level and eating the right foods helps a lot. If the person had the genetics for obesity, but they exercised and ate well, in my experience (with myself and other people) it's more likely they'll lose weight. If they eat like shit and don't exercise, they will more than likely gain weight unless they have genes like yours to keep them skinny. All in all, you're more right though. It is a combination of circumstances.

229, I agree that it's good for overweight people to try and be active. Cheerleading's just a weird one because if they're the kind of cheerleaders that throw people up into the air and do pyramids, they can't really have an overweight person on their squad... unless that person stays firmly on the ground throughout the cheers, which probably could've been arranged. But cheerleaders who do all that advanced gymnastic stuff are almost 100% bound to be skinny, because to be that good at gymnastics you actually have to BE a gymnast (and flexible, and overweight people are simply less flexible). On the other hand I doubt there's a large group of girls in every high school that just happen to be gymnasts, so quite often cheerleaders probably just do a dance routine and that's it, which means they CAN have overweight people because nobody's getting thrown up into the air or anything. Either way it sucks that the girl was thrown out of her squad for being overweight, especially if she was only slightly overweight and got no warning or a chance to lose a couple of pounds to stay on the squad (if it's the gymnast kind).