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Early life risk factors for obesity in childhood.

Sarah Toovey : 13 June 2005

A recently published paper identifing obesity risk factors in children of up to 3 years of age in UK was carried out by paediatric energy metabolists and nutritionists.

The participants in the study were 8234 children aged 7 years with a focus in particular on a sample of 909 children taking into account early growth related risk factors for obesity.

The objective was to obtain a body mass index (usually indexed at 3 for the 95th centile) in order to ascertain Obesity at age 7 years referencing data for the UK population in 1990.

The results published showed 8 out of 25 risk factors that are associated with the obesity risk were identified including whether the particpants parents were obese themselves, how much television is watched per week, taking into account birth weight, weight at 8 months and sleep duration at 3 years old.

The conclusion showed that the presence of these 8 factors in early life are directly associated with an increased risk of obesity in childhood.

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