14 DAY TRIAL // A recent research on children's waistlines and belly fat showed that abdominal obesity has increased by 65% in American infants and teenagers. The study has been carried out by a team of scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center and overall results of the investigation proved to be highly alarming, especially if associated with continually increasing rates of obesity worldwide.
The findings of the current research have been published in the Pediatrics Journal and also highlighted the fact that abdominal obesity rates are higher in girls than in boys nowadays, as they have increased by 65% in boys and by 70% in girls, since 1988. Medical experts cautioned that abdominal fat is a more precise indicator of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome etc. than the Body Mass Index (BMI) which is considered rather misleading.
Therefore, if the belly fat of children has increased by 65-70% during the 1988 - 2004 period and is on a continual rise nowadays, this means that risks of fearful, potentially lethal conditions lies just around the corner for an extremely large number of American children.
One of the authors of the study, Stephen Cook, M.D., Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center's Golisano Children's Hospital at Strong said that children who have their arteries obstructed by moderate levels of sugar or 'bad' cholesterol have plenty of chances to improve their cardiovascular system.
On the other hand, adults who have high levels of unfriendly cholesterol and sugar in their blood stream and plaque has already built up on their arteries are at a considerably high risk of developing severe symptoms of heart disease and related conditions.
Dr. Stephen Cook said: "Kids, teens and adults who have early stages of atherosclerosis in their arteries can have a healthy cardiovascular system again. Older adults who have plaque build up have a much harder battle, especially if the plaque has calcified."
He also cautioned that - since the 1990's - abdominal obesity rates have increased mostly in children: "between the 1988-1994 data and the 1999-2004 data, the largest relative increase in the prevalence of abdominal obesity occurred among 2- to 5-year old boys - 84 percent - and 18- to 19-year-old girls - 126 percent."