New clinical research suggests that children are much more likely to be obese or overweight by the time they reach high school if they are categorized as overweight at the age of five.
While much of the focus on early nutritional choices has been aimed at providing healthy food options in elementary schools, the new research says a child’s “weight fate” may be determined before they ever set foot in a classroom.
“We keep pushing our critical window earlier and earlier on,” said Solveig Cunningham, a scientist at Emory University who led the recent study. “A lot of the risk of obesity seems to be set, to some extent, really early in life.”
Study Results
For their study, researchers tracked more than 7,700 children as they progressed through grade school. When children started kindergarten, 12 percent were categorized as obese and 15 percent were overweight. By the time they finished eighth grade, 21 percent were obese and 17 percent were overweight.
When analyzing the data over the course of grade school, scientists found:
- Overweight five-year-olds were four times more likely than normal-weight children to become obese in their teenage years (32 percent compared to 8 percent).
- Nearly 50 percent of the children who started kindergarten overweight became obese teens.
- The greatest increase in documented cases of obesity occurred between first and third grades. The fewest changes occurred between ages 11 and 14.
- 10 percent of girls became obese, while 14 percent of boys developed obesity throughout the study.
- The prevalence of obesity increase by 50 percent among Hispanics, 65 percent among whites, and 120 percent among blacks. By eighth grade, 17 percent of black children, 14 percent of Hispanics and 10 percent of whites had become obese.
- Obesity was least common among children from wealthy families. Obesity was the most common among families with the next-to-lowest income.
So while school lunch programs can help provide healthy food choices for children once the enter the school system, it’s up to the parents to ensure their kids are getting healthy food options before they step foot on the school bus for the first time.
Dr. Stephen Daniels, a pediatrician and spokesperson for the American Health Association, said it’s much easier to prevent obesity than to treat it after the fact.
“You can change your fate by things that you do early in life,” with exercise and a balanced diet, said Daniels. “Once it occurs, obesity is really hard to treat. So the idea is we should really work hard to prevent it.”
Dr. Silverman comments
While the overall sentiment that children who are overweight at a young age are more likely to be obese as teens isn’t surprising, it’s nice to be able to associate some values to the equation. 50 percent of overweight kindergartners will be obese teens – now that’s an eye-opening statistic.
As I’ve said before, it’s easy to pacify a crying child with a Capri Sun or a Twinkie, but you could be setting unhealthy examples early in life. As this study shows, once a 5-year-old is overweight, it’s hard to get them off the path of obesity.
Related source: Washington Post