Does Baby Fat Lead to Obesity?
There’s new evidence that baby fat may not always be so cute after all. Babies that gain a lot of weight quickly in their first six months of life are at increased risk for becoming obese by the time they become toddlers, according to new research. Obesity rates among children in the United States have doubled in the last 20 years, and nearly one-third of U.S. children are now considered overweight or obese. The rapid increase has triggered alarm because obesity is linked to a host of health problems, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer. In the new study, Elsie Taveras of Harvard Medical School and her colleagues studied 559 mothers and their babies living in the Boston area participating in Project Viva, an ongoing study of pregnant women and their children. Those that gained weight quickly during their first six months of life were about 40 percent more likely to be obese by age 3, the researchers reported this week in the journal Pediatrics. That’s after the researchers too
