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Being overweight as a child significantly increases the risk for heart disease in adulthood as early as age 25, according to a large new study that provides the most powerful evidence yet that the obesity epidemic is spawning a generation prone to serious health problems later in life.
The study, of more than 276,000 Danish children, found that those who were overweight when they were 7 to 13 years old were much more likely to develop heart disease between the ages of 25 and 71 -- even those who were just a little chubby as kids, and possibly regardless of whether they lost the weight when they grew up.
"This is incredibly important," said Jennifer L. Baker of the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Copenhagen, who led the research, being published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. "This is the first study to convincingly show that excess childhood weight is associated with heart disease in adulthood, or with any significant health problem in adulthood."
The study was published with an analysis of U.S. health statistics that projects teenage obesity will raise the nation's rate of heart disease by at least 16 percent by the year 2035, causing more than 100,000 additional cases.
"This offers a frightening glimpse of what we have in store," said David S. Ludwig of Harvard Medical School, who wrote an editorial accompanying the studies. "The epidemic of childhood obesity is not a cosmetic problem. It can have profound long-term consequences for adult illness and death."
The proportion of U.S. children who are overweight has tripled since 1976 and now totals more than 9 million. The sharp rise has already caused a jump in children developing Type 2 diabetes, which used to be known as adult-onset diabetes because it occurred almost exclusively among adults. Children are also increasingly being diagnosed with high blood pressure and cholesterol, which raised fears they will be more likely to develop heart disease -- the nation's leading cause of death.
Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/05/AR2007120502072.html
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Overweight Kids At Risk as Adults
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Study Finds Problems Even Among Those Who Eventually Slim Down
By Rob Stein
The Washington Post, December 6, 2007
Straight to the Source
Comments
diana
Dec 9 2007, 10:13 PM
I was going to bypass this, after reading the article, finding it's another data dredge with too many variables left hanging. But it's weight bigotry yet again dragged out on the OCA Homepage, another goosestepping alarm to remind us that we have nothing to fear but our very bodies. Furthermore, condemnation is just around the corner, should we step out of line and not meet the new, random, six-year window for stepping back in.
Seems they've discovered something about you, if you're fat at age 7, slim down by age 13, and are Danish (they extrapolated, but I know that just being Black skews the correlation, and I'm betting not everyone who isn't Black is actually Danish). You may have a decreased risk of heart disease. If you slim down in early adulthood, you don't change your risk; it's still elevated. If you stay fat, you don't appear to change your risk, either.
Seems the conclusions from the Roseto Study might be most useful, here: oppressive attitudes toward fatness are the real issue; the best intervention would be either moving (back, in the case of Roseto) to a non-oppressive environment, or intervening in the oppression to get people to stop their hurtful and health-depleting behaviors. ('Fat' is not a behavior, nor does 'overeating' cause it; the behavior I'm talking about is harassment for being visibly fat.).
I don't have access to the study specifics, but I am reasonably sure that the dieting industry directly funded the study, or a front group for either the diet or the pharma industry did so. Data dredge, sold science, fear-mongering, furthering an already-brutal oppression -- and now of children(!), and driving us away from the real issues ... why? --diana
bobby
Dec 26 2007, 04:10 PM
no difference at all, i say they are at risk if they get bigger and bigger... this clearly affects their health... common problem would still be the food intake and food consumption... 
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Eat well for a healthy mind and body.
diana
Dec 26 2007, 04:25 PM
QUOTE (bobby @ Dec 26 2007, 04:10 PM) 
no difference at all
huh?
QUOTE
i say they are at risk if they get bigger and bigger... this clearly affects their health... common problem would still be the food intake and food consumption...
and why the smilie?
OK, let's just skip to the facts. They are: studies trying to *prove* that fat people eat more and/ or differently fail. So it's not overconsumption, no matter how attractive that idea is (to the thin-privileged), nor is it 'eating bad foods.' I would likely agree with you and others as to what constitutes 'bad' but it still doesn't necessarily make people fat, nor does abstaining make people thin, so the correlation with adiposity fails, even while the food in question is health depleting. It might be good to remember that illness and fatness are nowhere near the same thing. Fat people actually keep showing up as living longer, so it's not a matter of health by any *real* standards.
So I'm left sitting here, missing what is so very clear. Take care, diana
ecoalex
Jan 2 2008, 05:38 PM
The problem to me is inactivity,a poor diet full of transfats, and hi fructose corn syrup. These two lab foods are the main cause of heart disease, and obesity. In Europe, they are banned, as nutrisweet is also. The greedy food industry is controlled by the likes of the corporations that make these unhealthy foods.How many kids have a soda for breakfast?Many.The capitolist system unchecked wreaks havoc on a society.Europe knows this,so has a social democratic form of government that cares for it's people's health much more than in the greed driven USA.Even dieticians, Drs are clueless as to the effects of aspertame, transfats, and hi fructose corn syrup.Exercise, clean air, clean whole foods, and a healthy mindset are the keys to health.Until health is portrayed as the main goal in the USA, which it might if a Universal Health Care scheme arrives, with lowered costs promoted by the Government, the supplier of Universal Care, everyone would have a stake in lowering the costs to the system.Who enjoys obesity, poor health, and higher taxes to treat this?
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For agriculture to be economical, it must be ecological.
diana
Jan 2 2008, 05:55 PM
QUOTE (ecoalex @ Jan 2 2008, 05:38 PM)
The problem to me is inactivity,a poor diet full of transfats, and hi fructose corn syrup. These two lab foods are the main cause of heart disease, and obesity.
I've said repeatedly that the science doesn't bear this out, that the literature, in fact, refutes it (J. Eric Oliver, journalist, in Fat Politics and Paul Campos in The Obesity Myth, plus Ampersand's wonderful website, Amptoons and its Case Against Weight-Loss Dieting: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006...t-loss-dieting/). Do you have more than your view to offer? I'm talking about the cause part, linked to the obesity part. I am in no way saying that these things are good, only that fatness and ill-health are a sloppy equation.
QUOTE
In Europe, they are banned, as nutrisweet is also. The greedy food industry is controlled by the likes of the corporations that make these unhealthy foods.How many kids have a soda for breakfast?Many.The capitolist system unchecked wreaks havoc on a society.Europe knows this,so has a social democratic form of government that cares for it's people's health much more than in the greed driven USA.Even dieticians, Drs are clueless as to the effects of aspertame, transfats, and hi fructose corn syrup.Exercise, clean air, clean whole foods, and a healthy mindset are the keys to health.
Agreed absolutely! So long as you don't make the mistake of equating health with thinness. Since the leading 'cause' of extreme adiposity is prior and repeated dieting behavior, I suspect it'd do a world of good to step away from fat-bashing, and look at health as being made up of vitality, as well as well-functioning bodily systems. Weight is incidental to that, except in the extremes, and, again, the high extreme is *caused* by attempts to lower weight, so why would more-of-the-same be a plausible solution?
QUOTE
Until health is portrayed as the main goal in the USA, which it might if a Universal Health Care scheme arrives, with lowered costs promoted by the Government, the supplier of Universal Care, everyone would have a stake in lowering the costs to the system. Who enjoys [...] poor health, and higher taxes to treat this?
Agreed, with the divide-and-conquer acquiescing removed.
Again, we do the corporatists' dirty work for 'em if we trot out the 'obesity' epithet. We do not want to condemn individuals, we want to change the system, right? We aren't looking for cheap jollies (which is what happens when folks stare aghast at Those Fat People! For Shame!). We are looking for valid measures of health and true vitality for our kids, ourselves, our nation, our world -- correct? Then there is no place for bashing individuals for an aesthetic standard with no basis in reality except the furthering of divides, so that we might more easily be conquered. Since the truth is that fat people live longer, it'd actually make more sense to concdemn thin folks, but that's hardly what I'm promoting! --diana
humanmilkpatentp...
Jan 10 2008, 09:24 PM
How we are fed as infants is one factor that impacts weight that hasn't been mentioned. As infants we have no control over how we are fed. If we are given artificial baby milks on schedules based on the needs and theories of adults, we have no control over the content, timing, and amounts we are given. When an infant is breastfed, the infant controls the timing and amounts given. Human milk is a totally different substance than infant formula. Cow's milk is geared to making that calve a big animal. Human milk is geared to developing the brain. Mammal milks are species specific. I believe part of the problem with overweight children is how they were fed at birth. The other part of the problem is what is in the can of infant formula. Recombinant bovine growth hormone, a genetically engineered growth hormone, may impact the human body, particularly little ones far more than is being currently understood. I think overweight has alot to do with the genetic redesign of basic foods and not about how much or how little someone eats. Babies have no choice about what they are fed, they are dependent on an adult. The adult is dependent on getting adequate information regarding the content of their food. No one knows whats in their food anymore. The blame for this situation should be placed squarely on a food industry that is manipulating our food and a government that refuses to regulate it.
Valerie
Valerie
diana
Jan 11 2008, 11:32 AM
Again, we can dislike patterns in our food system, and they can make us unhealthy, but that doesn't equate to 'fat.' When we keep searching for a cause to this obesity epidemic, and yet independent experts have insisted there IS NO epidemic, then there's some other reason for this holy grail quest.
And again, there is no difference in the eating patterns between fat people and thin people.
As to 'demand' vs. natural feeding, the human body has amazing resilience, and will return to the natural feeding state. It's more than I can detail here, but there's ample evidence to support this, and to counter the idea that bad parenting and forcing a kid to clean their plate really is mean -- but doesn't lead to adiposity. People who learn to get and stay in touch with their internal hunger signals do not lose appreciable weight, although they are generally comfier.
Both my kids are chunks. Both were breastfed entirely on demand, on their own senses of hunger and satiety, and neither has eating issues at all. I worry that so many have deep and abiding beliefs -- about my family members' bodies! Further, I worry that those same beliefs don't fit with the existing science, but they continue to be the most common view.
If we can stop unnecessarily demonizing or otherizing people, if we can focus on the problems with rBGH, and with how we feed infants and children (GMO junk, HFCS, and margarine/ hydrogenated oils), it makes sense. But we do not need to link it to 'fat.' Being fat is not inherently bad, nor is it a sign of obvious illness. But seeing fat people as inherently problematic, diseased, or just plain wrong ... hmmm. --diana
And again, there is no difference in the eating patterns between fat people and thin people.
As to 'demand' vs. natural feeding, the human body has amazing resilience, and will return to the natural feeding state. It's more than I can detail here, but there's ample evidence to support this, and to counter the idea that bad parenting and forcing a kid to clean their plate really is mean -- but doesn't lead to adiposity. People who learn to get and stay in touch with their internal hunger signals do not lose appreciable weight, although they are generally comfier.
Both my kids are chunks. Both were breastfed entirely on demand, on their own senses of hunger and satiety, and neither has eating issues at all. I worry that so many have deep and abiding beliefs -- about my family members' bodies! Further, I worry that those same beliefs don't fit with the existing science, but they continue to be the most common view.
If we can stop unnecessarily demonizing or otherizing people, if we can focus on the problems with rBGH, and with how we feed infants and children (GMO junk, HFCS, and margarine/ hydrogenated oils), it makes sense. But we do not need to link it to 'fat.' Being fat is not inherently bad, nor is it a sign of obvious illness. But seeing fat people as inherently problematic, diseased, or just plain wrong ... hmmm. --diana
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