Frightening fat findings

He Kitenga, 2005

A study of Dunedin three-year-olds has found that 25 per cent are overweight or obese. Even more alarming, researchers were not surprised by this finding.

“It’s only slightly higher than we expected based on previous studies of older children,” 2005 New Zealand Paediatric Fellow and study co-ordinator Dr Philippa Carter says.

“It is frightening for a number of reasons. Apart from the adverse psycho-social problems, obese children face significant physical problems, the most serious being the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, with all the health risks that entails.”

The Dunedin School of Medicine longitudinal study follows the growth, activity and eating environments of 241 Dunedin children from their third to fifth birthday.

As well as weighing and measuring the children, and keeping tabs on how active they are, the study also looks at family eating habits like whether they eat together and if the TV is on or off.

The aim is to discover which environmental factors are most important in becoming overweight or obese, how that risk can be averted and what intervention treatment would have best results.

Current intervention treatment has poor long-term results and needs to be more complex than simply telling people to eat less and do more, Carter says.

At the age of three, there appears to be little correlation between children’s body mass index and the amount of activity they do.

As other studies show older overweight children are less active, this study is an opportunity to find out what comes first – the extra kilos or the inactivity.