Fat kids grow up to be fat adults: A lesson to be learned from China

The Ethnoepidemiology of Obesity

“…Unfortunately, these health behaviour patterns are also observed in aboriginal youth and children, which will have important health consequences in the future. Of note, 70% of overweight children tend to become obese adults [146], which highlights the necessity of educating children about healthier food choices and active behaviors. Additionally, it appears that some genetic variants associated with obesity have been replicated in numerous ethnicities and are directionally consistent, suggesting that risk from common genetic variants across ethnicity may not differ [95, 105-108, 113, 115-117, 147-153].…”

Cardiology in contemporary China: An update

“…Among the risk factors that have been identified are excessive caloric intake from fast food [61][62][63][64][65][66], insufficient exercise from increasing availability of and increased reliance on automobiles [63,68], and popularization of television [63,67,68], all of which result in obesity. The prevalence of obesity continues its upward trend in China [1,[69][70][71][72] as the rest of the world [73].…”

“…There is also an epidemic of diabetes in China [69], which goes hand in hand with the obesity epidemic in China [1,[69][70][71][72]. Diabetes is a risk factor for coronary artery disease in Chinese adults [74].…”

La obesidad infantil en la prensa española

“…El trabajo realizado por HAUG et al (2009) indica que en España entre un 20-25% de los menores son obesos, mientras que la incidencia de sobrepeso entre los niños de 2 a 9 años en España es alrededor del 31% (BRANCA et al, 2007). Debemos reflexionar sobre las consecuencias de estas cifras, ya que estos niños suelen padecer a edades más tempranas problemas relacionados con el exceso de peso, y a lo largo de su vida adulta, tienen más probabilidad de desarrollar enfermedades crónicas, que representan una carga de mayor envergadura para el sistema sanitario (CHENG, 2007). De hecho, los científicos como ARANCETA et al (2003), responsables de los estudios nacionales sobre la prevalencia de SO-FAT, advierten de la trascendencia social de esta 'epidemia' contemporánea:…”