Report in journal Pediatrics says sudden weight gain in early infancy is more important than how much a baby weighs at birth
By Deborah L. Shelton | Tribune reporter
March 30, 2009
Rapid weight gain during the first six months of life appears to increase the chances that a child will be obese by age 3, according to a new study in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics.
The study found that sudden weight gain in early infancy was more important than how much a baby weighed at birth, the weight of the infant's parents, or the number of pounds put on by the mother during pregnancy.
"The perception has been that a chubby baby and a baby that grows fast early in life is healthier and all the baby fat will disappear," said the paper's lead author, Dr. Elsie Taveras, an assistant professor in Harvard Medical School's ambulatory care and prevention department. "But [that] is not the case."
Taveras was quick to point out, however, that parents should not put their chunky babies on diets.
"More work needs to be done to determine why rapid weight gain in infancy occurs before we can develop policy, clinical protocols and interventions," said Taveras, also a co-director of One Step Ahead, a pediatric overweight prevention clinic at Children's Hospital Boston.
Health professionals have been struggling to understand why the nation's children are ballooning in weight, as childhood obesity has been linked to a host of chronic diseases later in life.
Other studies have looked at the link between obesity and birth weight, but the Pediatrics study was the first to look at rates of weight gain in relation to body length during infancy as a factor.
The study involved 559 mother-child pairs living in the Boston area; 72 percent were non-white and about 33 percent had a household income of less than $70,000.
Researchers used measures of body weight and length together—referred to as weight-for-length—because the combination gave a better picture of a child's body fat composition than weight alone, like the body mass index for adults.
The link between rapid infant weight gain and obesity by age 3 was striking, even after adjusting for factors such as being born premature or underweight. For example, an infant weighing 18.4 pounds after six months had a 40 percent greater risk of obesity at age 3 than did an infant of the same birth weight who grew to 16.9 pounds.
Taveras said the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, did not look at why some infants gained weight suddenly. Possibilities include prenatal factors or too-frequent feeding.
By Deborah L. Shelton | Tribune reporter
March 30, 2009
Rapid weight gain during the first six months of life appears to increase the chances that a child will be obese by age 3, according to a new study in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics.
The study found that sudden weight gain in early infancy was more important than how much a baby weighed at birth, the weight of the infant's parents, or the number of pounds put on by the mother during pregnancy.
"The perception has been that a chubby baby and a baby that grows fast early in life is healthier and all the baby fat will disappear," said the paper's lead author, Dr. Elsie Taveras, an assistant professor in Harvard Medical School's ambulatory care and prevention department. "But [that] is not the case."
Taveras was quick to point out, however, that parents should not put their chunky babies on diets.
"More work needs to be done to determine why rapid weight gain in infancy occurs before we can develop policy, clinical protocols and interventions," said Taveras, also a co-director of One Step Ahead, a pediatric overweight prevention clinic at Children's Hospital Boston.
Health professionals have been struggling to understand why the nation's children are ballooning in weight, as childhood obesity has been linked to a host of chronic diseases later in life.
Other studies have looked at the link between obesity and birth weight, but the Pediatrics study was the first to look at rates of weight gain in relation to body length during infancy as a factor.
The study involved 559 mother-child pairs living in the Boston area; 72 percent were non-white and about 33 percent had a household income of less than $70,000.
Researchers used measures of body weight and length together—referred to as weight-for-length—because the combination gave a better picture of a child's body fat composition than weight alone, like the body mass index for adults.
The link between rapid infant weight gain and obesity by age 3 was striking, even after adjusting for factors such as being born premature or underweight. For example, an infant weighing 18.4 pounds after six months had a 40 percent greater risk of obesity at age 3 than did an infant of the same birth weight who grew to 16.9 pounds.
Taveras said the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, did not look at why some infants gained weight suddenly. Possibilities include prenatal factors or too-frequent feeding.
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