Identifying Risk for Obesity in Early Childhood

A new research study of children’s growth, published in the September issue of Pediatrics, can help parents and pediatricians determine the risk that a child will be overweight at age 12 by examining the child’s earlier growth. The study demonstrates that children who are overweight at any stage of their growth before age 12 are more likely to be overweight by the time they are 12, and the more times a child is measured as overweight during these growth years, the greater the chance that by 12 the child will be overweight.