A STUDY by researchers from the University of Montreal and University of Ottawa suggests that there?s an adult conspiracy of sorts at work when it comes to the truth about Santa Claus.

They found that parents are willing to perpetuate the legend of a magical being that dresses in red and white and brings presents to good girls and boys all over the world in a single night a lot longer than one might expect.

At this time of the year, parents and children alike are inundated with Christmas specials that have aired annually for decades, not to mention the ads, songs and stories involving Santa.

For a few years, children believe that Santa isn?t just a character in a story but a real figure who travels in a sleigh driven by eight (or nine, counting Rudolph) flying reindeer.

?[Finding out] becomes a rite of passage in that they know they are no longer babies,? Larivée said in a statement.

Truth about Santa

Serge Larivee and Carole Senechal compared the results of studies done in 1896 and 1979 in which children aged 7 to 13 and their parents were asked about the existence of Santa Claus.

In both studies, Larivee and Senechal found that more than 40 percent of the children who participated said they gradually found out the truth about Santa Claus on their own.

Nearly a quarter of the children in 1896 said they felt let down when they learned the truth, the researchers noted, compared with 39 percent of the children in the 1979 study.

So perhaps it?s unsurprising that Larivee and Senechal found that roughly half of the parents in 1896 said they kept the myth of Santa Claus alive longer than they might have because, they said, it made their children happy.

Nearly 75 percent of the parents in 1979 cited the same reason for withholding the truth about Santa from their children.

A study done in 2000 showed the number of parents who kept Santa Claus real for their children had risen to 80 percent.

While the Santa story lives on, a study in the Dec. 17 issue of the British Medical Journal by the Indiana University School of Medicine professors used the Christmas theme to dispel a number of holiday-related myths.

One myth focused on whether or not eating at night makes people gain weight. No, said the researchers, eating more calories than are burned off is what leads to the extra pounds.

A study published online Dec. 14 in the journal Nature Genetics, however, suggests that weight gain might not depend solely on one?s metabolism.

Based on studies involving more than 90,000 people, researchers from more than 60 institutions around the world, all of whom are part of the Genetic Investigation of ANthropometric Traits consortium, identified versions of six genes that might be associated with obesity.

Some of these genes are involved in the central nervous system, which suggests that being genetically predisposed to obesity might have a behavioral component.

Identifying these genes that might play a role in regulating body weight, the researchers noted, could one day lead to the development of new treatments.

Body weight regulation

?Abundant evidence supports multiple possible roles of the [central nervous system] on body weight regulation, including on appetite, energy expenditure and other behavioral aspects,? the researchers wrote in the study.

Previous studies done involving family members and twins have shown that 40 percent to 70 percent of the variation in body mass index, the measure most commonly used to determine whether or not a person is obese, has a genetic component.

?It might seem remarkable that it is the brain that is most commonly influenced by genetic variation in obesity, rather than fat tissue or digestive processes,? said Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute researcher and study co-author Ines Barroso in a statement.

?Until 2007, no genetic associations had been found for ?common obesity? but today almost all those we have uncovered are likely to influence brain function.?

E-mail the author at massie@massie.com.