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Obesity Guide
Obesity At Young Ages Is Becoming Increasingly Common
Obesity has reached epidemic levels in the US and, not surprisingly, is now commonly being seen amongst teenagers. However, it would seem that this epidemic has now spread from the adult and adolescent population and we are starting to find obesity at young ages that a lot of people find it difficult to believe.
Despite the fact that it is difficult to comprehend, a recent study which examined close to two thousand children found an alarmingly large number of overweight and obese children as young as three years of age.
The study looked at a group of children who were born to low income families between 1998 and 2000 in some twenty US cities. Both the weight and height of the children were recorded at the age of three and the researchers discovered that close to thirty percent of white and black children were overweight or obese with this figure increasing to forty-four percent for Latino children.
While across the board these figures are very worrying, the high incidence of obesity among Latino children is especially worrying and is so far unexplained. The study did note however that there was a tendency for Latino children with overweight mothers to themselves be overweight and also found that it was more common practice for mothers of Latino children to give them a bottle at bedtime.
In themselves these observations are believed to contribute to the higher incidence of obesity in Latino children, but they are unlikely to provide the whole solution to the question of just why Latino children demonstrated a markedly higher obesity rate.
In addition to the stigma which is attached to obesity and the inevitable pressure which these overweight and obese children are going to find themselves under, a number of medical conditions like high blood pressure and asthma are also starting to be seen at younger and younger ages. Quite young children are also now being diagnosed with several conditions like type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol and heart problems which were formerly thought to be purely 'adult' conditions.
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