RxPG News Feed for RxPG News

Medical Research Health Special Topics World
  Home
 
   Health
 Aging
 Asian Health
 Events
 Fitness
 Food & Nutrition
 Happiness
 Men's Health
 Mental Health
 Occupational Health
 Parenting
 Public Health
 Sleep Hygiene
 Women's Health
 
   Healthcare
 Africa
 Australia
 Canada Healthcare
 China Healthcare
 India Healthcare
 New Zealand
 South Africa
 UK
 USA
 World Healthcare
 
   Latest Research
 Aging
 Alternative Medicine
 Anaethesia
 Biochemistry
 Biotechnology
 Cancer
 Cardiology
 Clinical Trials
 Cytology
 Dental
 Dermatology
 Embryology
 Endocrinology
 ENT
 Environment
 Epidemiology
 Gastroenterology
 Genetics
 Gynaecology
 Haematology
 Immunology
 Infectious Diseases
 Medicine
 Metabolism
  Hemochromatosis
  Hyperlipidemia
  Metabolic Syndrome
  Obesity
 Microbiology
 Musculoskeletal
 Nephrology
 Neurosciences
 Obstetrics
 Ophthalmology
 Orthopedics
 Paediatrics
 Pathology
 Pharmacology
 Physiology
 Physiotherapy
 Psychiatry
 Radiology
 Rheumatology
 Sports Medicine
 Surgery
 Toxicology
 Urology
 
   Medical News
 Awards & Prizes
 Epidemics
 Launch
 Opinion
 Professionals
 
   Special Topics
 Ethics
 Euthanasia
 Evolution
 Feature
 Odd Medical News
 Climate

Last Updated: Oct 11, 2012 - 10:22:56 PM
Obesity Channel

subscribe to Obesity newsletter
Latest Research : Metabolism : Obesity

   EMAIL   |   PRINT
Children’s Belly Fat Increases More Than 65 Percent

Nov 7, 2006 - 10:10:00 PM , Reviewed by: Priya Saxena
“Kids, teens and adults who have early stages of atherosclerosis in their arteries can have a healthy cardiovascular system again”

 
[RxPG] Abdominal obesity increased more than 65 percent among boys and almost 70 percent among girls between 1988 and 2004. The finding of growing girth is significant because abdominal obesity has emerged as a better predictor of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes risk than the more commonly used Body Mass Index, a weight to height ratio that can sometimes be misleading.

As the first nationally representative study to document the increase in children’s belly fat, the study in today’s Pediatrics paints a bleak picture for these children who have a higher risk of heart disease, adult-onset diabetes and metabolic syndrome. The good news is that, for children and adolescents, the health effects are often reversible through improved lifestyle for weight loss.

“Kids, teens and adults who have early stages of atherosclerosis in their arteries can have a healthy cardiovascular system again,” said Stephen Cook, M.D., an assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Golisano Children’s Hospital at Strong and an author of the study about childhood abdominal obesity. “Older adults who have plaque build up have a much harder battle, especially if the plaque has calcified.”

Measuring waist circumference is not a “vital sign” normally taken in a visit to the doctor. A BMI is commonly calculated at a well visit, but there are limitations to those measurements. A very muscular person may register a high BMI score, even if he is very healthy and has an average waist circumference. On the flip side, a sedentary child may not register a very high BMI score, but if he carries a lot of fat around his middle, he may be at a higher risk for health problems than other children with the same BMI score.

Cook said there is no gold standard yet for how waist circumference should be measured and no consensus yet on the cut-off point for abdominal obesity. However, he added, the study should be a warning for physicians and parents to limit sedentary activities, such as TV and computer time, and to teach and model healthy eating and exercise behaviors; childhood obesity is a serious and growing problem – perhaps even more than people already believe.

Although increases in Body Mass Index scores have raised concerns about U.S. children’s short- and long-term health, the increase in the percentage of abdominally obese in children appears to have increased even faster than overweight measured by BMI scores. According to data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 1999 and 2004, the percentage of 6- to 11 year-old children with high BMI scores rose about 25 percent (15.1 percent in 1999-2000 to 18.8 percent in 2003-04). But the increase in abdominal obesity of the same group over the same period was even more dramatic, more than 35 percent (14.2 percent in 1999-2000 to 19.2 percent in 2003-04).

“Those increases only grow more alarming as you tease out specific age groups over longer periods of time,” Cook said. “For example, 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.”



Publication: Pediatrics Journal
On the web: www.urmc.rochester.edu 

Advertise in this space for $10 per month. Contact us today.


Related Obesity News
Overweight people will stay that way for ever
Your shampoo could be making you fat
This asthma drug can burn your fat
Burning fat can lead to a longer life in worms
New obesity drug, Tesofensine, seems promising
Can slowing down 'fat burning' genes reduce obesity?
Personal counseling helps in maintaining weight loss
Type 2 muscle important in body metabolism and obesity
A Predisposition to Obesity
Obesity in mothers responsible for obese offspring

Subscribe to Obesity Newsletter

Enter your email address:


 Feedback
For any corrections of factual information, to contact the editors or to send any medical news or health news press releases, use feedback form

Top of Page

 
Contact us

RxPG Online

Nerve

 

    Full Text RSS

© All rights reserved by RxPG Medical Solutions Private Limited (India)