What are the characteristics of childhood obesity?

Childhood obesity, like adult obesity, is caused by excessive accumulation of fat in the body. In addition to genetic factors and environmental factors, age is another factor in childhood obesity. Children are different from adults in that they have their own characteristics because they are in the growth and development period.

Japanese scholars divide obese children into four stages: infant obesity, childhood obesity, school-age obesity and adolescent obesity. Most childhood obesity is caused by infant obesity and adolescent obesity. The former is caused by the most vigorous development of human fat tissue during infant childhood, and the latter is caused by unstable hormone secretion in the body during adolescence.

Research in recent years has believed that the period from the 30th week of the fetus to one year after birth is the most active proliferation period of adipose tissue. If there is excess nutrition at this stage, the number of adipose cells will increase and will not decrease throughout the life, which means that obesity during the infant period may lead to lifelong obesity. Fat cells still proliferate rapidly in childhood, and it is important to maintain a normal weight before the age of 10. Overweight children can often develop into overweight adults. Relevant surveys show that by the age of 31, 88% of women and 86% of men will continue to be overweight among overweight children aged 10 - 13; by the age of 31, only 42% of women and 18% of men will develop into overweight.

Someone abroad has conducted a detailed study on 54 obese children and 25 obese adults, which proved that fat increases with weight gain in the first year after birth and persists. Therefore, overweight infants at 12 months of age will have more fat cells and will not decrease due to subsequent fasting. Obese babies are prone to gain weight during their lifetime because they have a large number of fat cells and are prone to being filled with fat. Therefore, the prevention of obesity should start at birth, and it is best to pay attention to it at the end of pregnancy. China Weight Loss Network (Internship Editor: Zheng Yanjun)