The risk of staying obese from childhood to the end of adolescence

Introduction: obesity is one of the most important problems in public health. It’s associated, at any age, with extensive comorbidity, notably cardiovascular disease and type2 diabetes.

When present in childhood, obesity poses a risk of remaining at later ages.

The objective of this study is to know the risk of children who are obese (according to Body Mass Index: BMI) at different stages of childhood, to stay obese when they become young adults.

Subjects and methods: a long-term study of 153 children born in 1989 is carried out, calculating their BMI at 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 14, and 18 years old. The relative risk of the children who are obese at each one of those ages to remain obese at 18-19 was calculated.

Results: children who are obese at 6, or later, showed an evident risk (from 7 to 23) to stay obese at 18. This risk peaks (23.8) at 11 years old, with figures of 40.9 in girls and 11.7 in boys.

The prevalence of obesity at 18 is 7.18% (CI: 3.0-11.0) (6.25% in males, and 7.86 in females); the prevalence of overweight is 18.3% (CI: 11.9-24.0) (26.56% in males and 12.35% in females).

Conclusions: children who are obese at age 6, or older, show a higher risk of remaining obese at 18-19 years old.