Obese

Sleepless teens likelier to get obese

A new study has demonstrated that teenagers who get less than six hours of sleep a night might be at risk of being obese as compared to their peers who sleep more than eight hours.

Sleepless teens likelier to get obese

Researchers at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health showed that teenagers had a high risk of being obese by age 21 and its was 20 percent higher among 16-year-olds who slept less than six hours.

Shakira F. Suglia, ScD, assistant professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School, said that lack of sleep in teenage years could stack the deck against one for obesity later in life and if one becomes an obese adult, it was much harder to lose weight and keep it off and the longer one was obese, there was a greater risk for health problems like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Suglia added that the message for parents was to make sure their teenagers got more than eight hours a night and a good night sleep did more than help them stay alert in school and it helped them grew into healthy adults.

The study is published in Journal of Pediatrics

Source: ANI news

Home Remedies for Obesity

home remedies for obesity

Obesity, which is excessive accumulation of fat in the body, is determined by measuring a person’s Body Mass Index (BMI). Generally, a BMI between 18.5 and 25 is considered desirable. If your BMI is 30 or more, you are considered obese.

You can calculate your BMI using the following:

BMI=(Weight in lbs / (Height in inches x Height in inches)) x 703, or if you measure with the metric system use BMI= Weight in kg / (Height in meters x Height in meters)

This problem is mostly attributed to poor lifestyle choices, such as eating processed foods high in fat, oversized food portions, overeating, excessive drinking, lack of physical activity, lack of sleep, and other similar habits. Genetic factors and hormonal problems also tend to increase the risk of developing obesity.

Obesity is a great concern not merely because of the excess weight, but also because it makes you susceptible to a number of serious health problems such as Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and others.

It is important to adopt healthy lifestyle changes to combat this problem. In addition, you can use some easy yet effective natural remedies to help with your weight loss efforts.

Here are the top 10 home remedies for obesity.

1. Lemon Juice
Lemon juice is one of the best home remedies for fighting obesity. It helps improve digestion and aids in detoxification. Healthy digestion is an essential pre-requisite for weight loss as it helps your body get the nutrients required to burn fat. Furthermore, it helps remove toxins from your body that slow down your metabolism.

Mix three teaspoons of lemon juice, one teaspoon of honey, and one-half teaspoon of black pepper powder in one cup of water. (If you use freshly ground black pepper, then just add one-quarter teaspoon.)
Drink it in the morning on an empty stomach.
Do this daily for at least three months.
Alternatively, you can simply have a cup of warm water mixed with a teaspoon of lemon juice.

2. Apple Cider Vinegar
Apple cider vinegar is another popular home remedy to reduce excess weight. Though the actual weight loss benefits of it are still unknown, preliminary research has shown that it can help protect against obesity. It helps breakdown fat and hence prevents the accumulation of body fat.

Mix two teaspoons of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water. Drink it daily in the morning and preferably before meals.
You can also drink a cup of water mixed with one teaspoon each of apple cider vinegar and lemon juice.

You can have up to two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar in a day. Do not exceed this amount, as it may reduce your blood potassium levels over time and lower your bone mineral density.

3. Aloe Vera
Aloe vera is useful in treating obesity because it stimulates the metabolism, increases energy consumption, and mobilizes unused fat in the body. It contains natural collagen proteins that make the body work harder in order to absorb the proteins. In addition, it helps remove toxins from the digestive system and colon.

Take two fresh aloe vera leaves, peel them, and scoop out the pulp.
Put it in a blender along with one cup of citrus juice, such as orange or grapefruit juice, or simply water. Blend it for two to three minutes. Drink this daily for at least a month.

4. Green Tea
Green tea is another popular natural remedy to promote weight loss. A study at Penn State revealed that epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), a compound found in green tea, helps slow down weight gain by limiting fat absorption and increasing the body’s ability to use fat.

Furthermore, green tea is packed with nutrients such as vitamin C, carotenoids, zinc, selenium, chromium, and other trace minerals.

Drink about three to four cups of green tea daily to combat obesity. You can also combine it with ginger tea or cayenne pepper.

5. Cayenne Pepper
Cayenne pepper helps control obesity and aids in weight loss. It contains capsaicin that stimulates your body to burn fat and increase energy expenditure. In addition, it stimulates digestion and suppresses excess appetite caused by malabsorption of nutrients in the body.

Make cayenne pepper tea by pouring a glass of hot water over cayenne pepper (start with one-tenth of a teaspoon or just a dash of cayenne pepper and gradually increase its quantity to one teaspoon). Squeeze the juice from half a lemon in it. Drink this tea regularly at least for a month.
Mix two tablespoons each of lemon juice and maple syrup in 10 ounces of water (one glass contains 8 ounces). Stir in a dash of cayenne pepper and drink it.
Use cayenne pepper and other spices, such as ginger, black pepper, and mustard seeds, generously in your meal preparations.

6. Curry Leaves
Eating 10 fresh curry leaves daily in the morning works as a great Ayurvedic remedy to deal with obesity and diabetes caused by obesity. Continue this treatment regularly for at least three to four months.

Research shows that curry leaves contain mahanimbine, an alkaloid that has anti-obesity and lipid-lowering effects. Thus, it helps lower body weight and reduces total cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

7. Tomatoes:

Eat a couple of tomatoes every morning on an empty stomach. Make sure you eat the peels and seeds as well because they contain dietary fiber. Tomatoes contain compounds that tend to alter the levels of hormones that affect your appetite.

Furthermore, being rich in vitamins A, C, and K, and magnesium, manganese, choline, folate, and other nutrients, they are good for your health. Also, they are packed with antioxidants that protect against cancers.

8.  Cabbage:

Make raw or boiled cabbage an integral part of your weight loss diet. It contains tartaric acid that inhibits the conversion of sugar and other carbohydrates into fat. Moreover, it is rich in vitamin C and low in calories but high in fiber and water content.

Being a cruciferous vegetable, it contains phytochemicals that help improve the imbalance of estrogen metabolism that not only causes your body to store fat but also promotes breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and others. Other cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and Swiss chard are also beneficial in this regard.

9. Fennel seeds

Fennel seeds are believed to be useful in weight loss because of their diuretic properties. Diuretics help you lose weight quickly by reducing water retention. They do not cause long-term weight loss though.

Slightly dry roast and grind fennel seeds. Sieve the powder. Take one-half teaspoon of this powder twice daily with warm water. This remedy will also help relieve abdominal gas, indigestion, and constipation.
You can also drink fennel tea 15 minutes before meals.

10. Honey and Cinnamon

Include honey and cinnamon tea in your diet to boost your metabolism, increase your energy, and detoxify your body. All of these effects support weight loss. Honey fights obesity by promoting fat metabolism. Cinnamon helps you avoid overeating by fighting insulin resistance and also reduces oxidative stress associated with metabolic syndrome.

Pour a cup of hot water over one-half teaspoon of cinnamon powder (you can also use cinnamon sticks). Let it steep for half an hour. Mix in one teaspoon of organic honey.

Drink half of it in the morning on an empty stomach, about half an hour before breakfast. Store the rest in the refrigerator and drink it at night before going to bed.

Along with these remedies, make sure you drink eight glasses of water throughout the day to flush toxins out of your body.

Studies have found that plant-based foods can help fight obesity becausethey contain phytochemicals that prevent oxidative stress, which contributes to obesity. So, opt for more plant-based foods rather than processed, fast foods. Plus, include grapes, peaches, figs, carrots, and blueberries in your diet.

Another very important yet ignored tip to fight obesity is to have a proper breakfast. Research shows that those who have a big breakfast are more likely to lose weight and even a few inches off their waistline compared with those who eat a large dinner.

Source: top 10 home remedies

Want to protect your kids from obesity? Get enough sleep

sleep-blog-june-27-337x224

If you wish to protect your kids from obesity, make sure you get enough sleep on a daily basis as a study has shown that a parent’s sleep has an effect on the likelihood that their children will be overweight or obese.

More parental sleep is related to more child sleep, which is related to decreased child obesity, the findings showed.

“We viewed how long parents slept and how long children slept as part of a household routine and found that they really did go together,” said Barbara Fiese from University of Illinois in the US.

In the study, socioeconomic characteristics were assessed in relation to protective routines and prevalence of being obese or overweight for 337 preschool children and their parents.

The routines assessed in parents included adequate sleep (over seven hours) and family mealtime routine.

The four protective routines assessed in children were adequate sleep (10 or more hours per night), family mealtime routine, limiting screen-viewing time to less than two hours a day, and not having a bedroom TV.

The only significant individual protective factor against obesity or overweight in children was getting adequate sleep.

Children who did not get enough sleep had a greater risk for being overweight than children who engaged in at least three of the protective routines regularly, even after controlling for parents’ BMI (body mass index) and socio-demographic characteristics, Fiese said.

But the researchers also learned that the number of hours a parent sleeps is related to how much sleep children are getting.

The study appeared in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

Source: samachar

Study: Obesity and Overweight Rates Climbing Worldwide

obese

A new study published in a British medical journal says obesity rates for both adults and children are climbing worldwide, with the greatest gain in weight in developing countries.

According to the report, the number of people carrying extra kilos climbed from 857 million globally in 1980 to more than 2 billion last year. Researchers report 62 percent of the world’s obese individuals live in developing countries.

The findings come from an analysis of data gathered from 188 countries published in the British medical journal The Lancet.

Investigators discovered the rates of overweight and obesity climbed 28 percent over the past 33 years with the biggest increase in children. Forty-seven percent of all youngsters and adolescents worldwide are now considered overweight or obese.

In developed countries, men have higher rates of obesity than women, although there’s evidence that the pace of weight gain in the United States and other Western nations has begun to slow over the past eight years.

“Nowadays, food is prepared for us. Remember, in the past, it used to take some time to cook a dish,” said Ali Mokdad, who teaches health metrics and evaluation at the University of Washington and co-authored the study. “Now a seven- or 10-year-old child could pop something in a microwave. It’s safe and readily available,” he said.

The authors found some of the highest rates of obesity in China, India, Russia, Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia. Places with the highest percentage of overweight people include the island nation of Tonga, where 50 percent of the population has a weight problem, along with Libya, Qatar, Micronesia and Samoa, where more than 50 percent of women carry excess weight.

The health care costs of obesity, particularly to developing countries, are enormous, according to Mokdad.

“It has a toll on our disability, our diseases. And with an aging population living longer, no country in the world can afford to spend all its money on treatment. We should find a balance between treatment and prevention,” he said.

Without targeted interventions, obesity control programs and the sustained efforts of national governments, experts say it is unlikely countries will meet the United Nations’ goal of halting the rise in obesity rates by 2025.

Source: voa news

Salt makes overweight people age faster

Scientists have discovered that overweight teenagers who eat too much salt have shorter telomeres, the ends of the chromosome which protect the cells from harm

Eating too much salt may speed up the ageing process, scientists have discovered for the first time.
Although sodium is known to raise the blood pressure, which can lead to fatal heart attacks and strokes, it is the first time it has been linked to cellular ageing.

Scientists found that overweight or obese teenagers who had a high salt diet had shorter ‘telomeres’ – the protective caps at the end of chromosomes – compared with those who ate a low salt diet. Telomeres have been compared with the plastic tips that stop shoe laces fraying.

Each time a cell divides the telomeres get shorter and when they get too short the cell stops dividing and dies.

The same genetic process has been linked to conditions associated with old age such as heart disease, cancer, type-2 diabetes and dementia. High levels of body fat were already known to hasten the shortening of telomeres.

But the new study found that sodium in salt seems to work hand-in-hand with obesity to speed the effect up still further.
Lead scientist Dr Haidong Zhu, from Georgia Regents University in Augusta, US, said: “Even in these young people, we can already see the effect of high sodium intake, suggesting that high sodium intake and obesity may act synergistically to accelerate cellular ageing.

“Lowering sodium intake, especially if you are overweight or obese, may slow down the cellular ageing process that plays an important role in the development of heart disease.

“The majority of sodium in the diet comes from processed foods, so parents can help by cooking fresh meals more often and by offering fresh fruit rather than potato chips for a snack.”

Dr Zhu’s team divided 766 teenagers aged 14 to 18 into different groups according to their reported sodium intake.

Low-intake teens consumed an average of around 5g of salt a day, compared with more than 10g grams for the high-intake group. In Britain the recommended intake is 6g. A recent study showed the majority of teenagers exceed their daily limit, mainly through eating bread and cereal.

Researchers found that overweight or obese teenagers who at the most salt had significantly shorter telomeres than those who ate the least. But high sodium intake did not have a significant effect on telomere shortening in normal-weight teens.

Although the salt link was only found in obese people it is the first time that salt has been shown to affect cellular ageing.
The research, presented at an American Heart Association meeting in San Francisco, suggests a possible link with inflammation, said the scientists. Inflammation is known to hasten telomere shortening and is linked to obesity. It also increases a person’s sensitivity to salt.

Katherine Jenner, Campaign Director at Consensus Action on Salt and Health said: “Lowering your salt intake is essential to lower your risk of not just heart disease, but also stroke, heart attack and chronic kidney disease.

“As you might expect, teenagers often have a high salt diet, but it’s not just pizza, crisps and chips that are the culprits, every day foods such as breads, breakfast cereals and sauces can be surprisingly high in salt.” Nutritionist Sonia Pombo added: “Children are eating a worryingly high amount of salt.

“Dietary habits in childhood and adolescence are likely to influence eating patterns in later life.
“Liking salt and salty foods is a learned taste preference and the recommendation that the adult population reduce their sodium intake will be more successful if children do not develop a preference for salt in the first place.”

Source: telegraph

Wider Waistline May Mean Shorter Lifespan: Study

Having a big belly means big trouble when it comes to your health, researchers warn.

They analyzed data from 11 studies that included more than 600,000 people worldwide and found that people with large waist circumferences were at increased risk of dying younger and dying from conditions such as heart disease, lung problems and cancer.

Men with waists of 43 inches or more had a 50 percent higher risk of death than those with waists less than 35 inches. This equated to a three-year lower life expectancy after age 40, according to the study.

Women with waists of 37 inches or more had an 80 percent higher risk of death than those with waists of 27 inches or less, which equated to a five-year lower life expectancy after age 40.
The larger the waist, the greater the risk, the researchers said. For every 2 inches of increased waist circumference, the risk of death increased 7 percent in men and 9 percent in women, according to the study, which was published in the March issue of the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Although the review found an association between larger waist size and risk of death at a younger age, it didn’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

The link between a big belly and increased risk of death was seen even among people whose body-mass index (BMI) was within the healthy range, the researchers found. BMI is an estimate of body fat based on height and weight.

“BMI is not a perfect measure,” study lead author Dr. James Cerhan, an epidemiologist at the Mayo Clinic, said in a journal news release. “It doesn’t discriminate lean mass from fat mass, and it also doesn’t say anything about where your weight is located. We worry about that because extra fat in your belly has a metabolic profile that is associated with diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.”

When assessing patients, doctors need to consider both waist size and BMI.

“The primary goal should be preventing both a high BMI and a large waist circumference,” Cerhan said. “For those patients who have a large waist, trimming down even a few inches — through exercise and diet — could have important health benefits.”

Source: Web md

Body Shape Index is Better Predictor of Mortality

In 2012, Nir Krakauer, an assistant professor of civil engineering in City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering, and his father, Jesse Krakauer, developed a new method to quantify the risk specifically associated with abdominal obesity.

A follow-up study, published in PLoS ONE, supports their contention that the technique, known as A Body Shape Index (ABSI), is a more effective predictor of mortality than Body Mass Index (BMI), the most common measure used to define obesity.

The team analyzed data for 7,011 adults, 18+, who participated in the first Health and Lifestyle Survey (HALS1), conducted in Great Britain in the mid-1980s, and a follow-up survey seven years later (HALS2). The sample was broadly representative of the British population in terms of region, employment status, national origin and age. They used National Health Service records through 2009 to identify deaths and cancer cases: 2,203 deaths were recorded among the sample population.

Then, they compared all-cause mortality from the HALS sample with ABSI and other variables, including BMI, waist circumference, waist – hip ratio and waist – height ratio.

The analysis found ABSI to be a strong indicator of mortality hazard among the HALS population. Death rates increased by a factor of 1.13 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.09–1.16) for each standard deviation increase in ABSI. Persons with ABSI in the top 20 percent were found to have death rates 61 percent than those with ABSI in the bottom 20 percent.

The results tracked closely with the earlier study, which used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), conducted in the U.S. between 1999 and 2004. This provides stronger evidence that ABSI is a valid indicator of the risk of premature death across different populations. Further, they showed that ABSI outperformed commonly used measures of abdominal obesity, including waist circumference, waist – hip ratio and waist – height ratio.

Also, because the data came from two surveys seven years apart, the researchers were able to assess the effect of change in ABSI on mortality. The found an increase in ABSI correlated with increased risk of death, and that the more recent ABSI measurement was a more reliable predictor. Noting this, the researchers contend that further investigation is warranted into whether lifestyle or other interventions could reduce ABSI and help people live longer.

Source: laboratory equipment

As U.S. waistlines expand, seatbelt use falls

Obese drivers may be at a strikingly higher risk of dying in car crashes than normal-weight drivers because they frequently fail to buckle up, a new study finds.

Based on analysis of a U.S. database of nearly 200,000 fatal passenger vehicle crashes, researchers found that normal-weight Americans involved in those accidents were 66 percent more likely to have been wearing a seatbelt than those who were severely obese.

“Cars should be designed so it’s easier to put a seatbelt on if you’re obese,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Dietrich Jehle, told Reuters Health.

“It’s very important to increase seatbelt use in heavier individuals to best prevent deaths on the highways,” said Jehle, who is director of emergency services at Erie County Medical Center and vice chairman of Emergency Medicine at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Federal safety standards set in the 1960s, when Americans tended to be lighter, require seatbelts to accommodate men up to 215 pounds. Some automakers provide larger belts or extenders, Jehle said, but heavier people frequently struggle to fasten their belts, feel squeezed once strapped in and drive unbelted.

An earlier study found that individuals considered morbidly obese were 56 percent more likely to die in vehicle crashes than people of normal weight.

Other research has shown that combined lap and shoulder belts reduce crash deaths by 45 percent, Jehle and his colleagues point out.

To see whether weight is linked to seatbelt use, Jehle’s group examined nearly 194,120 drivers involved in auto crashes in which there was at least one fatality between 2003 and 2009.

It is the largest investigation to date of a connection between seatbelt use and obesity, the researchers note in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

Obesity is typically defined by body mass index (BMI), a measure of weight relative to height. People with a BMI between 18.5 and 25 are considered normal weight. A BMI between 25 and 30 is considered overweight, between 30 and 40 is obese, and above 40 is morbidly obese.

A 5-foot-10-inch tall man who weighed 300 pounds would have a BMI of 43, for example.

One-third of Americans are considered overweight and another third are considered obese, according to 2009 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new study relied on police reports and direct observations about whether drivers involved in fatal traffic accidents wore seatbelts.

Jehle’s team found that the closer to morbid obesity a person was, the less likely he or she was to have been wearing a seat belt.

Compared to the morbidly obese drivers, moderately obese people were 23 percent more likely to have been buckled up. The slightly obese were 39 percent more likely and the overweight were 60 percent more likely than the morbidly obese to have been wearing a seatbelt.

“Not buckling up is a deadly decision,” Jehle and his colleagues write. “Obese drivers are far less likely to wear seatbelts than are drivers of normal weight, which puts them at a greater risk of being subjected to higher impact forces and being ejected from the vehicle, both of which lead to more severe injury and/or death.”

Peggy Howell, a spokeswoman for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, agreed that seatbelt use is important and told Reuters Health she obeys the seatbelt law despite difficulty.

“As a woman who’s busty, the seatbelt rides up and strangles me. But I wear my seatbelt, as does my sister, and we’re both clinically obese women,” said Howell, who described herself as close to 300 pounds.

Deb Burgard, California psychologist who specializes in eating disorders, praised the study for calling attention to the need for seatbelts that work for heavy drivers.

Burgard and Howell expressed concern, however, that the findings could shift blame for not wearing seatbelts to obese people.

“I’m just wondering if this is going to lead to insurance companies trying to charge fat people more,” Howell said. “Are police going to start profiling? What are the long-term ramifications of a study like this?”

Jehle said he would like the study to prompt car manufacturers to make longer belts and for safety regulators to use larger dummies in crash tests.

“A lot of the crash studies are done on dummies that do not fit in with our current population, which is one-third overweight and one-third obese,” he said. “When they sell you a vehicle, they should sell it with all the equipment you need to wear a seatbelt.”

Source; Reuters

Football ‘can tackle male obesity’

Football participation is a good way to get men to slim down, a Scottish study published in The Lancet shows.

Some 374 overweight soccer fans were invited to take part in a 12-week program of training sessions at their local football club.

A year later, the men had lost and kept off about 11lb (5kg) each compared with 374 overweight fans put on a waiting list for the programme.

The Glasgow researchers say it proves male-friendly weight loss plans work.

All 748 men in the study were offered healthy-eating advice and tips on weight management, but only half were invited to professional football clubs for weekly training sessions.

Thirteen clubs took part: Aberdeen, Celtic, Dundee United, Dunfermline Athletic, Hamilton Academical, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Rangers, St Johnstone and St Mirren.

As well as losing weight when they were on the 12-week programme, nearly 40% of men who participated in the programme maintained a weight loss of at least 5% of their original body weight 12 months later.

Co-author Prof Kate Hunt, from Glasgow University, said: “Weight management and dieting are often wrongly viewed as women’s issues, meaning that some men do not want to take part in existing weight management programmes.”

But given the right circumstances, men are also keen to slim, she says.

“Participants really enjoyed being with other men like them, with a shared interest in football and similar health issues to address. They loved having the opportunity to spend time at the club, using parts of the stadium that they couldn’t ordinarily access.

“And they appreciated the chance to be encouraged, trained, and informed by the club’s coaches. This model has real potential for the future.”

Source: BBC news

Early start to weight gain tied to later heart risks

Kids who start rapidly gaining weight early in childhood are more likely to have higher blood pressure and other signs of future heart trouble as preteens, a new study suggests.

“There’s a natural tendency early in life for children to thin out as they grow taller and gain stature faster than they gain weight,” Dr. Mark D. DeBoer said.

But eventually, all kids hit a point when they start gaining weight at a faster pace, and their body mass index (BMI) – a measure of weight in relation to height – begins to rise. That point is called the adiposity rebound.

The adiposity rebound typically happens around age four to six, DeBoer, who studies childhood obesity at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, told Reuters Health.

Some studies have suggested children who start to put on weight at a younger age are more likely to be obese later in life. The new report adds to those concerns.

“It helps I think give us a better understanding of what this might be impacting in addition to obesity,” Dr. Stephen Daniels said.

Daniels studies preventive cardiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, where he chairs the Pediatrics Department. Neither he nor DeBoer was involved in the new study.

Researchers led by Dr. Satomi Koyama of Dokkyo Medical University in Mibu, Tochigi, Japan, followed 271 children born in 1995 and 1996. Kids had their weight and height measured at least once every year through age 12 during infant health checks and then physical exams at school.

From looking at each child’s growth pattern, the researchers determined when children hit their lowest BMI, the age at adiposity rebound. After that, they got bigger every year.

Koyama’s team found the earlier both boys and girls reached that turning point, the heavier they were at age 12.

For instance, boys who started getting bigger around age three had an average BMI of 21 as preteens. That’s the equivalent of a five-foot-tall boy weighing 108 pounds.

Boys who didn’t start getting bigger until at least age seven had an average BMI of 17 – the equivalent of the same boy weighing 87 pounds.

Boys who had their adiposity rebound at a young age also had higher triglycerides and blood pressure at age 12. Although their numbers were still in the normal range, they could hint at signs of future heart problems, the researchers wrote Monday in Pediatrics.

For girls, the link between age at adiposity rebound and heart risks was smaller but still visible.

“Physicians should be tracking body mass index and should be checking for kids who are headed in the direction of being more obese,” Daniels said.

But, he told Reuters Health, parents and pediatricians won’t be able to tell exactly when children are at their adiposity rebound. And it’s not clear how to prevent it from happening early.

“There’s a strong possibility that these are children who inherited a genetic predisposition that made them more likely both to have early adiposity rebound and to have metabolic syndrome earlier in life,” DeBoer said.

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors, including high blood pressure, that are linked to heart disease.

“The message is probably still more general, in terms of families working with pediatricians and family physicians to make sure that families have a healthy diet (and) that they have healthy opportunities for activity,” Daniels said.

Source: Reuters