Heart Disease Health Center
This article is from the WebMD News Archive
Obesity, Heart Disease May Start Young
Jan. 8, 2007 -- The potentially risky relationship between obesityand heart diseasemay begin before kids become teens, a study shows.
That news appears in The Journal of Pediatrics.
The study's findings suggest that being overweight at a young age (9-12) "is not harmless and should be viewed as a serious health risk by parents and pediatricians," researcher Doug Thompson, PhD, tells WebMD in an email.
Thompson works for the Baltimore-based Maryland Medical Research Institute.
Thompson's team studied 1,213 black girls and 1,166 white girls in three cities: Berkeley, Calif.; Cincinnati; and Rockville, Md.
The girls joined the study when they were 9-10 years old. Their height, weight, body fat, blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides (blood fats) were measured annually until they were 18.
At age 9, about 7% of the white girls and 17% of the black girls were overweight. Those figures rose to 10% of white girls and 22% of black girls at age 12.
Girls were more likely to become overweight when they were 9-12 years old than as teens, the study shows.
The preteen years from 9-12 "may be an especially important period" for girls' weight, write the researchers.
Heart Disease, Obesity Risks
Overweight girls were more likely to have "unhealthful" higher blood pressure and worse cholesterol levels, compared with girls who weren't overweight, the researchers write.
When the girls were 21 to 23 years old, they reported their current height and weight.
Those self-reports, which weren't confirmed by the researchers, show that 118 of the 989 white women (12%), and 305 of the 1,063 black women (nearly 29%), were obese.
The young women who had been overweight when they were 9-12 years old were 11 to 30 times more likely to be obese as young women.
For instance, about seven in 10 obese young women aged 21-23 had been overweight at age 9; nearly eight in 10 had been overweight at age 18.
The findings suggest that the relationship between extra pounds and heart disease risk factors "is present at age 9," the researchers write.
Of course, thinness doesn't guarantee a healthy heart. Many factors affect heart health.
At any age or weight, your doctor can help you gauge and improve your heart's health.
