Childhood Obesity - Do you have an overweight child? We offer tips to help your child lose weight and get fit!

The My Overweight Child blog will help you keep informed about the latest research, findings, and resources available to parents of overweight or obese kids. There are many knowledgeable people working on the increasingly dire problem of childhood obesity - and we want to give parents a place where they can check in regularly to see the latest studies and tips available to help you help your child lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

We invite you to add your comments - if you have feedback for the blog, would like some specific topics covered, or you just want to share your experience as a parent dealing with childhood obesity.

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Obese Youth as Young as 3 Have Markers for Heart Disease

Obese children as young as three years old have health markers linked to developing heart disease as adults, according to a new article in the journal Pediatrics.
  • Researchers from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine looked for three markers that measure inflammation in more than 16,000 children ages 1 to 17 years old.
  • About 60 percent of the obese teenagers in the study showed elevated levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) compared to 18% of teenagers with normal weight.
  • The very obese children were even more likely to show elevated levels.
Very little is known about CRP levels in children, but Dr. Ashley Skinner, author of the study, believes that elevated levels are probably a predictor of heart disease in adulthood.

"It's really important to be concerned about childhood obesity and to even be concerned when they are quite young," she said." We can't wait until they are adolescents or adults."

Labels: toddlers, heart_disease, infant

Posted By: Aspen/CRC