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Subscribe to RSSA simple assessment can predict at birth a baby's likelihood of becoming obese during childhood, scientists said on Wednesday.
The formula, available as an online calculator, estimates the child's obesity risk based on its birth weight, the body mass index of the parents, the number of people in the household, the mother's professional status and whether she smoked during pregnancy.
Researchers who published a study of the test in the journal PLOS ONE say they hope it will be used to identify babies at high risk and help families take steps to stop them putting on too much weight before it's too late.
Childhood obesity is a leading cause of early type 2 diabetes, as well as various types of cardiovascular disease, and is becoming increasingly common in developed countries.
According to data from the American Heart Association, almost 18 percent of boys and almost 16 percent of girls aged between two and 19 in the United States are obese. In England, 17 percent of boys and 15 percent of girls aged between two and 15 are obese, according to National Health Service (NHS) data.
"Once a young child becomes obese, it's difficult for them to lose weight - so prevention is the best strategy and it has to begin as early as possible," said Philippe Froguel of Imperial College London, who led the study.
"Unfortunately, public prevention campaigns have been rather ineffective at preventing obesity in school-age children. Teaching parents about the dangers of over-feeding and bad nutritional habits at a young age would be much more effective."
Froguel's team developed the formula using data from a study set up in 1986 following 4,000 children born in Finland.
They were initially investigating whether obesity risk could be assessed using genetic profiles, but the test they developed based on common genetic variations failed to make accurate predictions. Instead, they found that non-genetic information available at the time of birth was enough to predict which children would become obese.
The formula proved accurate not just in the Finnish children they studied, but also in further tests using data from studies in Italy and the United States.
"This test takes very little time, it doesn't require any lab tests and it doesn't cost anything," Froguel said. The calculator is available here.
Although the team's work using common genetic variants did not prove to be helpful for predicting childhood obesity, they said about one in 10 cases of obesity are caused by rare mutations that seriously affect appetite regulation.
The researchers said tests for these types of mutations could become available to doctors in the next few years as the cost of DNA sequencing technology falls.
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free and easy formula
let your kids watch tv every day all day without going outside to play they will get overweight, they will be lazy, and lack innovation and creativity, and if they play violent games all day thus will be their attitude in the future,
so for 4 days out of 7 make sure they play with friendsOUTSIDE and always eat good food with the bad
its called common sence, stay penned up like a pig - become a pig
MY FOUNDATION FOR MY FORMULA
in my day i played outside everyday when i was young till 16 years old, went to full time work, and im 50 years old i stand 5'-9" and weigh 165 pounds hmmmmmm could it be having fun outside playing baseball volleyball football running swimming might have affect on one belly size? could i be wrong? guess i better try sitting on my butt and see where that gets me?
no way
Popular belief, but wrong. If you really want to know what causes obesity, read "Why we get Fat and What to Do About It " by Gary Taubes.
For those that want the Cliff Notes version, it's the sugar and starch in the modern American diets.
I find this so interesting, "it's the fat" "it's the sugar" "it's the dairy" "it's meat" "it's carbs including whole grains"...so very many things in our diet blamed for the obesity so-called epidemic, when the dietary habits of folks in the past few centuries until now would actually cause a modern nutritionist to just about have a stroke! Lard, dairy-heavy, fat-heavy, greasy; you name it folks ate it in large quantities.
Fact is: our human nature is conservative of calories. We don't exercise enough to justify what we eat, combined with something that hasn't really been defined yet to my satisfaction to explain why some people (such as my husband at 6'4 and 165 lb, my 15 year old son at 5'9 and 100 lb, and daughter at 4'10 and 90 lb) can eat all day long whatever they want and even if they sit in front of the TV all day, and they frequently do!, can't gain weight if they try.
Scary thing to me is I wonder if this formula described in the article would peg my kids "at risk" just because I am overweight...that's scary. They DO NOT need to "diet" because I'm heavy.
This seems to calculate from whether your immediate family are overweight, if they are educated, what social class they might fit into, if the mother has bad physical habits , and if you are a big fat baby. This is not rocket science.
If you are born of a low economic/social class of people who all feed the same trough of junk food, place no value in physical fitness and engage in destructive behavior such as smoking, and have little education---you are likely to not fall too far from that family tree. There is no mystery here as to IF that baby will grow up with the same low values and habits and look just like the parents. Odds are that they will. Some do defy the odds, but, most do not.
On the other hand, change one or two of those factors and you will likely have a different outcome. For instance, the baby could be the product of a couple of those tall and skinny people who still have low education levels and smoke, but they never seem to get fat. They might still have bad eating habits and not be well nourished. But, they might not be fat.
The question I have is why I see so many fat kids in affluent neighborhoods. My son does an after-school class that meets at an expensive private K-8 school. His dropoff is roughly the same time as pickup for the students at this chi-ch school. About 1/4 of the younger students and about 1/3 of the older students are obese. These parents are not too poor to afford healthy food- so what gives? Back when I was growing up in the '80s there was usually 1 fat kid per class, or a roughly 5% obesity rate.
they have poor coping skills I would imagine and are turning to food 4 comfort which has led them to become addicted to food....
queenie - dont you think it's a bit sad that kids have anything at all that requires coping?
i get the feeling you're speaking more from experience and projecting that on everyone else.
im not saying you arent accurate, but it doesnt explain all situations.
some kids are just lazy, enjoy junk food - and VOILA, the combination results in obesity.
im speaking from my own personal experience, I love candy and pop (still do) and at times I can be the laziest person in the world, and when those two combine...I add on the pounds.
When im not in a lazy mood, I tend to be fairly active - so even if I have pop or candy - I dont put on the pounds. When I cut the pop out (especially) and remain active, VOILA, I lose weight.
nothing to cope with on my end, other than my love of candy and pop...and my desire to sit on my butt and stare at the tv sometimes.
Too bad we can't find a way to predict stupidity and try to fix it from the get go. Imagine how many problems caused by others stupidity could be prevented. Oh, wait can't be fixed forgot. At least wwe could have early warnings noted to protect folks around them. Same with upstarting future criminals.With all the advances in science, who knows perhaps one day it may happen. Look at all the science fiction stuff come to pass. Bottom line still on stupidity, one can always wish.
Once again, MSN bringing us the tough, news breaking articles...
If everyone else in the world automatically understands that diet and exersize determin your weight, why the hell did we have to do a study for some stupid calculator? If this was tax payer funded, I want my money back
No, we need government to dictate what and how much we eat and drink
If taxpayers weren't picking up so much of the medical costs for treating obesity, you'd have a point. Get rid of taxpayer-funded healthcare programs like Medicaid and I'd agree that what you eat is no one's business but your own. But it kills me that some morbidly obese couch potato can eat McDonald's every day and then my family's hard-earned income has to go towards paying for the inevitable health problems caused by the poor lifestyle choices.
I'm not a big fan of taxes in general, but I absolutely believe it's far past time to implement a tax on junk food.
How much are they picking up? Tell us, please.
Ah, if only...
My state (California) spends $42 BILLION on Medicaid each year, and the CDC has estimated that obese Medicaid recipients cost the program an extra $1723/year compared with non-obese recipients.
Wow- Another study to waste time and money. Weight has nothing to do with how much or how little money you have, your education or where you live. That is all such a bunch of horse pucky. If you want thinner kids stop plugging their pie hole with food. Even as an adult how much food do you need. i am sitting here having my breakfast which consists of 2 tangerines and some tea. Not a bagel or donut or cream pie. That will be it till lunch when i will probably have a bowl of soup or somthing simular. I inherited my diabetes from my mom as did two of my other brothers. One is skinny and one is fatter. One watches his diet and the other does not. We were all brought up the same way as kids. We ate breakfast and went out to play. We did not sit around looking at our phones, watch TV or play video games. When we went to school mom packed our lunch with a simple sandwich, fruit and maybe some crackers for a snack. No fruit pies, pudding snacks or chips.
It is not rocket sceince! As our society advances(not sure whether I should laugh at that or not) people just seem to get less intelligent. Probably our school systems. No one needs another report to tell people why they are fat. When you go to the grocery store just look in the carts of fat people versus skinny people- there is the truth and reason.
Yes that is true to some extent i guess- remember the story of the mother who packed her kids lunch- Turkey sandwich,fruit and a small bag of chips and apple juice. The lunch police did not think it was a good lunch so they made her buy chicken nuggets, fries and some sort of sugar loaded drink.
Still base intelligence should be enough to say, Hey I am a fat pig and this is how I eat,i don't want my kids to be fat pigs so lets have them eat better! no amount of education can instill that in any one i guess
What UTTER garbage. Why not just take their zodiac sign, divided by the number of idiots in the delivery room and multiplied by a factor of how many calories in a cup of air? BMI is based on the same arbitrary measurements. And I wonder what helpful 'steps' doctors will take to prevent that all-terrifying childhood obesity? Low-fat formula? Taking babies at highest risk away from their families and dumping them into the foster care system so they can be starved thin from birth?
According to this, my daughter had a 96% chance of being obese. Seems unlikely that she and my son both dodged a 4% bullet. I think this is complete crap. I have always been heavy and my husband's family tends to be thinner, but tall. Our children could take after either one of us. This is complete nonsense.
I completely agree. My 9.5 lb baby is now the skinny one and my 6.5 lb baby is now the chubby one. Obviously genetics playa huge role in anything but this is a slippery slope we are putting our foot on.....visualize a sci-fi type scene of babies lined up being measured and weighed by men in white coats then one line out a door and another to a disposal room. Say I am crazy, but this is exactly how BS like this starts.
Janierock: I think you miscalculated, which is not hard to do considering how many conversions are required. (metric and BMI) I played with the formula quite a bit to see which factors carried the most weight (pun unavoidable!) and couldn't get myself or two kids over 10% no matter what I did. (including 7 extra siblings, giving myself an obese BMI, and changing employment status) Maternal smoking seemed to be the biggest factor, which was kind of predictable (maternal smoking is linked with both low birth weight and premature births)
I was a very overdue baby, so I was a very large baby (induced labor wasn't very popular when dinoaurs roamed the earth) and have always had a theory that no one overfeeds gargantuan babies, so they develop fewer fats cells by the age of two, thus less likelihood of being overfat. (humans have all their fats cells by the age of two- our fat cells can expand and shrink, resulting in size differences, but that # remains static)
My mother had a college degree, but didn't work outside the home, so I listed her as unemployed. When I switched it to "professional", the result didn't change much.
Lisa C. mentioned activity differences between her childhood in the 50's and today, and I think decade of birth would be a huge factor, as electronic entertainment increasingly replaces physical activity as entertainment.
Insurance knows its statistics very well- I tend to believe their little formula . Remember, this isn't showing cause and effect, it just shows a link between these factors.
I don't know about that. Both my boys were little (5.5 and 5.0 lbs), and the older one is a bean pole while the younger one is very solid with only a bit of baby fat left at age 2.5. I breastfed both on demand, only pushing the bean pole a bit food-wise when he'd drop too far off the doctor's height/weight chart. They get a wide variety of food, good to bad, and their favorites are usually veggies, even without any kind of sauce or dip.
One thing I don't do is force them to finish anything. They may not get dessert if they don't eat enough dinner, but I won't make them clean their plate. I grew up having to sit at the table until every bite was gone, being told 'there are starving kids in Africa', etc., and I ended up having weight problems. If I'm making my own plate, I'm good at just getting enough so I'm just not hungry, but if I eat out or have something pre-portioned, I tend to finish what's there even if I end up stuffed. (and I was average size when I was born, and formula fed.)
Another thing I don't do is force them to sit still for long periods of time. I try to contain their rambunctiousness to one room at a time, or if the weather's good enough I'll take them to the apartment courtyard, but I don't deny them their need to be in motion much of the time.
I fail to see how this can be accurate as far as the child' birthrate is concerned. I checked it out and then played with the birthweight part and say larger babies are likely to be obease according to this. Th problem here is that it doesn't consider the baby's length. A 24 inch baby (like one of mine) and an 18 inch baby both weighing 9 pounds at birth have drastically different amounts of fat at birth. One of my sons was 24 inches tall and 9 pounds at birth, needless to say he was so skinny you could see every rib and bone on him. Chart says 80.88% change of being obease. He's not. 6ft 4 inches tall and no longer skinny but still slim.
All you got to do is adopt the LGBTs life-style, and you'll be forever attractive to the same sex! So, who cares, everyone is sick to death of the slim, sleek, under nourished models, on both sides of the isle! I'm amazed that our politicians are not charging fat taxes, to all obese people! Oooppss, I forgot the insurance industry is already doing that for the government! {:-)}
The type (formula or breastmilk) and method (schedule or on demand) of feeding also comes into play in predicting risk of obesity. Surprised this is not mentioned. If you 'train' a tummy right from the beginning of life to accept insane amounts of formula (more than 1-1.25 oz per hour...so 24-30 oz in 24 hour period) you begin the process of overeating. A lot of parents and even nurses do not understand the 'high suck need' of infants and mistake it for hunger when in actuality it is an intentional and unconscious (and rather genius of Mother Nature) effort of the baby to suckle at its mother's breast to stimulate and maintain the correct milk supply. If you allow babies to suckle at will and to nurse at will they will take exatly what they need - when they are hungry or when they want to suckle - and they will create the correct amount of milk for the duration of nursing. Breastmilk coats the stomach, gut, intestines...and creates a lifelong barrier that repels and prevents absorption of certain germs, carcinogens, bacteria, etc. and protects that baby their entire life. Breastmilk also passes through babies quickly, hence their need to eat more frequently (just like a healthy diabetic diet). If you allow babies from the beginning to eat when hungry - as opposed to when they are allowed/forced to eat - they will learn to do just that over their lifetime.
Most babies who are born large grow into an average weight category by six months of age. Both of my children were very large babies, and now both are in the fiftieth percentile for weight and height. There was no reason for them to be large babies: my husband and I are not large people (nor are we very tall), and I did not have gestational diabetes. I take issue with that element of this "simple formula."
see influence of Mothers as largest contributors to obesity.
what nice idiot women we have in America.
And we get all mopey about Afghan women, yeah right.
taking this as a "it's the mother's fault" - that "have it all mommy" type.
You know the type. They're bloating up EVERYWHERE. won't cook -feeds 'em fastfood.
say what to who ?
Wild P: Evidently you have some issues-I think they're with women. Fortunately for the rest of us, you're so inarticulate that your post is meaningless.
Here's my formula...
Too much food + Not enough exercise = Fat
Pretty simple, no?
The mother smoking factor: While it's easy to believe that children of mothers that smoked tend to be obese later on in life, the factors behind it would not tend to be genetic. Kids with parents that don't care for them properly are always seeking out ways to get satisfaction in their life. Chances are, other than smoking while carrying the kids, the parent is "weak" in nurturing, providing proper foods, giving emotional stability...etc. The child is raised under terms of selfishness, loathing and lack of genuine caring attitudes (hasn't the mother proven this by not giving up smoking during pregnancy?).
This kind of upbringing can lead people to seek out comfort. A big bowl of ice cream and a pizza can provide that comfort factor, along with all kinds of fast food choices, sugar filled products and the like. Being given a lack of motivation derived by the lifestyle of the parent, being short on regular exercise going along with living in the "PC Age" goes to show why most children are overweight in today's America.
I can remember when autism was believed to be caused by cold, uncaring mothers, and homosexuality caused by overbearing ones. One day we will look back and find it difficult to believe anyone could really think that obesity has emotional roots, or is caused by poor upbringing and inadequate parenting.
Simple carbohydrates (sugar and starch) increase blood sugar, and in many people create serious cravings for more of the same. Obesity is not an emotional problem, it's a biological one.
another missed opportunity to tout the preventive factor of breastfeeding, which reduces baby and mom's risk of obesity, among other chronic health conditions...
WAKE UP America - breastfeed all babies and get enough exercise and teach your children to eat well and be active. We'll be amazed at how well prevention works...
I think the author of this article, Kate Kelland, needs to pick and choose her articles she's reporting about better. PLOS One is an open access journal that lacks credibility. While open access isn't inherently bad, it's not where people go to find quality research.
Anyone can access this article and read for themselves how poor it is. It's entitled: Estimation of Newborn Risk for Child or Adolescent Obesity: Lessons from Longitudinal Birth Cohorts. They give little background information and their discussion section encompasses about half the article. Their variables are not defined. When you go to use the calculator, it's important to know this. My wife is college educated but chooses to be at home with our child. Where does she fit in with the professional category and why? They give no supporting information
I'm also curious why Kate Kelland doesn't mention the name of the article title or the authors. This seems to happen often when I read reviews of research. It makes it hard for anyone to go and review the article themselves. This article has 19 authors! It comes off more of a way to get a name out there and another publication on a vita. I was 6th author on an article once and hardly did anything. What does number 19 do?!
I was excited to read this article at first but after a little digging I think there's little validity to it. I think I'm going to have my students critique it in class tomorrow. They've been reviewing research all semester long and should easily be able to pick this one apart and know that it's crap.
I've now seen this same research reported on CNN, TIME, and Fox. Apparently no one in the news really knows how to analyze research.
Interesting article! I think there are some good valid concerns with the study expressed in the comment section. Hopefully, any further studies will address those concerns. I think that Mike (comment # 1.5) brings up a good point about insurance companies, which are often concerned with actuaries. There are a lot of factors that can affect weight gain. In terms of the whole nation and the rise we have seen, diet and lifestyle must play a big part, since it seems to me that percentage of genetics and other causes unrelated to diet and lifestyle would remain approximately the same as it was 50 years ago. And yes, emotions can certainly play a part for many people. I have experienced that myself--I started stress-eating chocolate when my first husband became very and chronically ill before he died. I finally had to give it up entirely, which I did many years ago, then I was able to start loosing weight again.
I believe that if each of us would grow as much of our own fruits n vegies as we can, avoid refined foods and chemical additives, and drink unsweetened coffee and tea instead of sodas, that would be an excellent start towards better health all around. And exercise more--and it doesn't have to be boring or expensive. Just turn on the radio, and dance a little bit each day, or garden, or take a walk (with your dog if you have one). It doesn't have to be calisthenics (unless you enjoy that...:). Take up an active pastime that you enjoy.
feline obesity is becoming a more common problem per capita than childhood obesity is actually and this is due in part to the information that's out there now on how risky being that overweightt can be to long-term health. maybe we need to do a similiar campaign to have people be aware that their cats can suffer from being very overweeight as well and then we can start to reign in the obesity problem overall arouind here
Obese parents are not smart about eating habits, and they pass on their habits to their kids. There are always advertisements for junk food, but no one is holding a gun to your head and making you eat it.
The " I-have-to-eat-junk-food" gene is a myth.
Too many empty calories over time is a real killer.
Doesn't a lot of this "study" fall into the common sense arena? In other words, we all knew this before someone wrote it up in a journal. At least they spent Finnish tax dollars and not ours on this...
Coomon Sense is not a common thing
I use to assume that having an overweight child was the direct result of bad parenting. As my name indicates I have 5 children. My youngest was a preemie weighing in at 3.5 lbs. She turns 7yr old today. Her weight has been a struggle since she was 4yrs old. She doesn't exercise any differently then my other four children. It makes me sad that other kids pick on her and adults give her looks in public. She is the sweetest, nicest little girl. She is also very tall for her age. People probably assume that her parents are over weight or do not feed her a proper diet. This is not the truth. Our pediatrician has ordered so many tests on my daughter to try to figure out if it is medical. It baffles her doctors and myself; considering 3 of my other children are actually on high calorie diets to just maintain their weights because they have very fast metabolisms like myself at their age. It breaks my heart when she asks why she doesn't look like all of us and she is strictly referring to her weight.
Poor little munchkin. I hope she gets healthier soon.
Hi Mom2Five--I hope that you find answers to your youngest. Have you tried seeing if she is gluten sensitive? I have a friend who is, and after finding out that she was gluten sensitive, she cut all gluten out (it's hard to avoid in buying canned/packaged food--it's in practically everything as an additive) and she started loosing weight. I am also gluten sensitive, and going on a gluten free diet has helped my overall health quite a bit. It's just a thought, may or may not be appropo in your daughter's case. At any rate, I also find it interesting that obesity and other GI related diseases increased with certain diet changes in our society as well as a reduction in exercise. I am finding that I feel SSOOO much better when I stick to simple fresh/frozen fruits/vegies, non-gluten whole starch foods/ and lean meats. I also have my own 6 hens--fresh eggs laid by happy, FUNNY hens! Well, they are molting now so they are not laying, but will again in the spring :)
I'm also planning on buying a book - "The China Study" that was highly recommended to my hubby and I. My hubby needs to loose some weight--and was interested in the book, so I am going to get it for his birthday for him.
Thanks Lisa, I will check into the gluten aspect. I have changed our entire families diet and we have cut out a lot of carbs unless it is whole wheat pasta. I also only buy frozen or fresh veggies and fruit.
Yes let's blame smoking again, as if smoking percentages haven't gone down while obesity has gone up.
Rats--I has a comment or two under the reply's for comment #1, but #1 got deleted which automatically deleted all the responses---I'm wondering, was Len Saunders an extra ID that the person was not supposed to have?
This is not some scientific equation. This is not hard science with calibrated quantities. This is more social science.
All they are saying is that by assessing genetics and lifestyle, it can be predicted what may become of the baby as life progresses. That is all.
It is pretty unsubstantial and seems to reflect what is obvious. This is not a hard formula that require just to plug in the elements and come to an absolute conclusion. It does not require a scientific mind to realize that the child is going to inherit the habits and metabolism of his parents. It seems that many are of the opinion that it does not require a scientific study either. Maybe some person or group needed to validate their professional credentials by evaluating the obvious.