i
Simulation of Growth Trajectories of Childhood Obesity into Adulthood
-
11 30 2017
-
-
Source: N Engl J Med. 377(22):2145-2153
[PDF-831.34 KB]
Details:
-
Alternative Title:N Engl J Med
-
Personal Author:
-
Description:BACKGROUND
Although the current obesity epidemic has been well-documented in children and adults, less is known about long-term risks for adult obesity for a given child at his or her present age and weight. We developed a simulation model to estimate the risk of adult obesity at age 35 for the current population of children in the United States.
METHODS
We pooled height and weight data from five nationally-representative longitudinal studies totaling 176,720 observations from 41,567 children and adults. We simulated growth trajectories across the life course and adjusted for secular trends. We created 1000 virtual populations of 1 million children ages 0–19, representative of the 2016 United States population, and projected their height-weight trajectories to age 35.
RESULTS
Assuming current trends, the majority (57.3% [95% UI 55.2–60.0%]) of today’s children will be obese at age 35, and roughly half of that cumulative incidence will occur during childhood. Our simulations indicate that the relative risk of adult obesity increases with age and BMI category, from 1.17 (95% uncertainty interval (UI) 1.09–1.29) for overweight 2-year-olds to 3.10 (95% UI 2.43–3.65) for 19-year-olds with severe obesity. For children with severe obesity, the chance they would no longer be obese at age 35 fell from 21.0% (95% UI 7.3%−47.3%) at age 2 to 6.1% (95% UI 2.1%−9.9%) at age 19.
CONCLUSIONS
Based on our models, childhood obesity and overweight continue to be a major health problem in the United States. Early development of obesity predicts future obesity, especially for children with severe obesity.
-
Subjects:
-
Source:
-
Pubmed ID:29171811
-
Pubmed Central ID:PMC9036858
-
Document Type:
-
Funding:
-
Collection(s):
-
Main Document Checksum:
-
Download URL:
-
File Type:
