Obese children already have high blood pressure and cholesterol by the age of 12
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| Two thirds of very obese children are at risk of developing heart disease by age 12, a study has found. |
7:45AM BST 24 Jul 2012
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A study has found two out of every three severely obese children already have at least one health problem that increases the risk of heart disease.
By age 12 they had high blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose, according to the study in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
The study was carried out in the Netherlands with data on 500 children collected between 2005 and 2007 with 307 classed as severely obese.
The figures could mean that thousands of British children are also affected after experts here warned children as young as seven were being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity.
Just over half of these 307 children were boys. They tended to be more severely obese at the younger end of the age spectrum; the reverse was true of girls.
Two out of three had at least one cardiovascular risk factor. Over half had high blood pressure; a similar proportion had high levels of low density ‘bad’ cholesterol; one in seven had high fasting blood glucose; and just under one per cent already had type 2 diabetes.
Only one child’s obesity was attributable to medical rather than lifestyle factors.
Nearly one in three severely obese children came from one parent families.
Dr Joana Kist-van Holthe, Department of Public and Occupational Health, at the University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, wrote: "The prevalence of impaired fasting glucose in [these children] is worrying, considering the increasing prevalence worldwide of type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents.
“Likewise, the high prevalence of hypertension and abnormal lipids may lead to cardiovascular disease in young adulthood."
In England, official figures show that among boys aged two to 15, the proportion who were obese increased overall between 1995 and 2004 from 11.1 per cent to 19.4 per cent, but has steadily fallen between then and 2010 to 17.1 per cent.
Among girls in the same age group, the proportion who were obese increased from 12.2 per cent to 18.8 per cent between the years of 1995 and 2005 but since then has steadily decreased to 14.8 per cent in 2010.
In England, the figures do not separate obese from severely obese as in the Dutch study.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9420727/Two-thirds-of-obese-children-show-early-signs-of-heart-disease-study.html
