Obese Children Twice as Likely to Die Before 55

Feb. 11, 2010— -- Obesity in children may pave the way to an early grave, a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds.

The study, published Wednesday, followed nearly 5,000 American Indian children from childhood to middle age and found that those who were obese as children were more than twice as likely to die from disease before the age of 55.

This is the first large study to confirm that childhood obesity is a risk factor for long-term complications, though that is something experts have suspected for years.

Previously, research has only been able to show associations between early death and childhood obesity, said Dr. Nicholas Stettler, a pediatrician who specializes in nutrition and epidemiology at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. But this study is more powerful, he said, because it further confirms a direct relationship between childhood obesity and long-term health complications.

In the study, children were measured for body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose from age 11 onward. High BMI and blood glucose levels were the strongest predictors of early death -- children with the highest BMI had double the risk of dying early when compared to those in the lower end of the BMI spectrum.

While the study was done in Pima Indians who were children 20 to 30 years ago, the rate of obesity for this population was similar to the high rate of obesity in American children today, a similarity that some doctors fear might mean an increased incidence of early death in the future.

"This population was ahead of the curve and allows us to look at risk factors in obesity during childhood because they've been carefully followed over time," Stettler said.

But there are aspects of the Pima population that may have exaggerated these results, said Dr. Lakshmi Atkuri, a pediatrician at Scott & White Hospital in Round Rock, Texas. As a group these children are shorter (and hence have a higher BMI) and tend to have higher rates of alcoholism as adults, she said.

"The study population had a death rate twice that of the U.S. population at large," she added, suggesting that they may not be representative of American children today.

However, study author Dr. Paul Franks said the Pima most likely are representative of populations at increased risk for obesity today, such as poor African Americans and Hispanics.

Several experts said they agree with this comparison, noting that given the high burden of obesity and cardiovascular disease in these populations, this study further emphasizes the need for community-wide initiatives to prevent childhood obesity in the first place.