It seems that the global epidemic of obesity starts earlier than we think! A new study shows that 32 percent of the babies involved were considered overweight or obese at 9 months!
According to a long-term study, babies could be considered overweight or obese as early as 9-months-old. In the study of more than 7,500 babies across the country, nearly 32 percent of the infants were considered too heavy. “It definitely raised eyebrows when we saw how early it was showing up,” said Brian Moss, an adjunct professor at Wayne State University and author of new research in the American Journal of Health Promotion to MSNBC. And experts say the only way to monitor weight gain is focus on the quality and quantity of a baby’s diet.
“Parents often don’t realize that children’s portions are far smaller than those of adults,” Dr. Goutham Rao, clinical director of the Weight Management and Wellness Center at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center says. “The rule of thumb at our center is that your portion of any sort of food should be no bigger than your fist. For a 1-year-old, that’s pretty tiny.” But still, parents shouldn’t be concerned if their child is ‘too fat,’ too early. If they make the appropriate changes to their child’s diet, the extra pounds should easily fall off. “It can take just a few tweaks to a baby’s diet to make a difference,” said Dr. Wendy Slusser, an associate clinical professor and medical director of the Fit for Healthy Weight Program at the Matell Children’s Hospital at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s probably only about 150 calories a day difference that we’re talking about.”
The children in the study were all born in 2001 and were measured at both 9-months-old and two-years-old. Then researchers compared the measurements for both age groups to standard growth charts created between 1963 and 1994 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Children who landed in the 85th percentile with weight compared to height were considered overweight, if they landed in the 95th percentile they were deemed obese.
Researchers were happy to see that those babies considered obese at 9-months-old had lost the excess pounds by the time they were two. Sadly, some babies who were not sigificantly overweight at 9 months ended up being so at two-years-old. “It means that in that age group, weight is a lot more fluid than it is in an obese 14-year-old,” Dr. Rao says. “And that means that these children are not necessarily condemned to be obese.”
But despite this idea, parents who have heavy children need to take charge and make changes in their baby’s diet. “Every child that has a healthy diet will get to a healthy weight,” Rao said.“You would be surprised at some of the foods and drinks kids are given. You see a lot of very young children eating French fries, because that’s what their parents are eating. Sometimes you’ll even see parents putting regular soda into a baby’s bottle.”
The fact that a third of the babies in the study were considered significantly overweight should be a hint to parents to start getting smart about their children’s diets. “This could be a red flag telling us that we need to be aware and to be focusing on healthy eating habits early on,” said Dr. Slusser. What do you think of this study, Hollymoms?