14 DAY TRIAL // A new study suggests that children who have a lot of baby fat as youngsters have a higher chance of becoming overweight or obese when they reach adulthood. Many parents hope that their kids' baby fat will go away of its own accord, but scientists suggest that this should not be left to chance.
Emory University assistant professor of sociology Solveig Cunningham, the leader of the study, says that these conclusions should not be taken as implying that children need to go on calorie-restricted diets or any such nonsense. The research is meant to suggest that a healthy weight needs to be considered from a tender age, not exclusively during adulthood, NPR reports.
The team bases its conclusions on a study of over 7,000 children, who were followed from kindergarten through middle school. “Kids who started off kindergarten overweight actually had about four times [the risk] of becoming obese by eighth grade,” Cunningham explains. Around 50 percent of 8th graders who were obese were also overweight in kindergarten.
“What you want to do, is help them have healthier lifestyle habits and they will grow into their weight,” says University of California in Berkeley nutritionist Joanne Ikeda. Details of the new study appear in the January 29 issue of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.