Fight Against Childhood Obesity Begins During Infant Years, Especially for Minority Kids

Risk factors for obesity begins at infancy, according to a study online published March 1 in the journal Pediatrics.

According to the press release annoucing the findings, while most obesity prevention programs - including the national initiative recently launced by First Lady Michelle Obama - target kids age 8 and older, this new study reports that beginning during infancy certain factors place children at higher risk for obesity.

In a study lead by Elsie Taveras, MD, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School, researchers studied 1,826 mother-child pairs from pregnancy until the child was 5 years old. Women wre interviewed at the end of their first and second trimesters, during the first few days after delivery, and when their children were 6 months and 3 years old. Questionnaires were also completed by the parents when their children were 1,2, and 4 years old.

The study revealed that when compared to Caucasian women, minority women were more likely to be overweight when they became pregnant and Hispanic women had a higher rate of gestational diabetes, both of which are risk factors for childhood obesity.

Futhermore, when other risk factors during a child's first 5 years was examined, researchers found that African-American and Hispanic infants were more likely to be born small, gain excess weight after birth, begin eating sold food before 4 months, and sleep less, compared to their Caucasian counterparts.

The study also suggested that during their pre-school years, minority children consume more fast food, drink more sugar-sweetened beverages, and are more likely to have TVs in their rooms, compared to Caucasian children.

While some believe that limited access to health care, poverty, and low education levels cause these risk factors, Dr. Taveras and her colleagues found that, when adjusted for socioeconomic status, the prevalence of many of the risk factors remained the same.
"This early life period - prenatal, infancy, to age 5 - is a key period for childhood obesity prevention, especial for minority children," said Dr. Taveras. "Almost every single risk factor in that period before age 2, including in the prenatal period, was disproportionately higher among minority children."