Excess weight should be tackled early

It's believed that young children shed their excess pounds as they get older, but it may not be completely true. On the contrary, it may trigger the risk of being obese in adulthood. Two-year-olds who are overweight are more likely to be overweight by the age of 12 years, than their normal-weight counterparts. Researchers from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that there is a need to maintain healthy weight in early childhood. They advised that being overweight at any time during early childhood should prompt interventions by paediatricians in counselling parents about healthy eating and activity patterns for their child, since obesity in the teen years is highly predictive of obesity in adulthood. In the current study researchers from NICHD in Rockville, Maryland, analysed the height and weight of roughly 1400 healthy subjects starting in infancy through about 12 years of age. At the end of the study, 1042 children still remained in the sample, of whom 555 had been weighed and measured at all seven points in time. It was found that children who were ever overweight in the preschool years were five times more likely to be overweight at age 12 than the rest of the children. Being overweight was defined as having a body mass index (BMI) greater than the 85th percentile for age. During elementary school years, children who were overweight at 7, 9, and 11 years of age had a 374-fold increased risk of being heavy at age 12 than those who remained below the 85th percentile. Moreover, 60 percent of children who were ever overweight during preschool years and 80 percent of those who were overweight during elementary school age were overweight at the end of the study. 'The findings suggest that any time a child reaches the 85th percentile for BMI may be an appropriate time for intervention. Even being in the top 50th percentile by the age of 3 puts a child at higher risk, with 40 percent being overweight at age 12. As would be expected, none of the children who were below the 50th percentile for BMI during elementary school years were overweight at the age of 12 years. The researching team urges paediatricians to counsel parents of at-risk children about addressing eating and activity patterns rather than delaying intervention hoping that overweight and the patterns that support it will resolve themselves in due course.