Overweight Children: a widening problem

Today, children are heavier than they were 10 years ago. Not only does obesity jeopardize a healthy future, obese children are likely to have one or more risk factors, such as high-fat levels, high blood pressure, and insulin resistance, associated with heart disease.
Normally, fat decreases during the early childhood years reaching the minimum between 4 to 6 years. At around 6 to 7 years, children experience the ‘adiposity rebound ‘, a natural occurrence wherein the child’s body fat increases in reparation for adolesceence. However, when the adiposity rebound occurs earlier, that is, before the age of 5 years, children are more likely to be overweight as adults than those whose adiposity rebound ocurrs around 7 years of age.

Further, recent research shows that the longer the child has been overweight, the more likely he or she is to be overweight during adolescence and adulthood.