Early origins of obesity: developing strategies for intervention

儿童肥胖率正在迅速上升，对未来的健康可能产生巨大影响。超重通常通过使用体重指数（BMI）将体重与身高相关联来测量。从童年到五岁的BMI跟踪可以预测未来的死亡率。因此，儿童肥胖似乎代表了一个定时炸弹，我们忽视了我们的危险。另一方面，我们知道今天大多数肥胖的成年人在童年时并没有超重，其他研究发现，幼儿时期的瘦也可能与成人健康状况较差有关，我们知道BMI是衡量体型和瘦体重以及肥胖。因此，如果我们要计划有效和安全的干预措施，当务之急是我们要更多地了解哪些儿童早期个体确实肥胖，以及这与喂养模式、体育活动和家庭生活方式的关系。盖茨黑德千年婴儿研究已经跟踪了1999年和2000年出生的1029名儿童，我们有关于喂养的信息，从出生到13个月的成长和社会环境。我们将再次研究这些6-7岁的儿童，以收集一系列肥胖、体格和肌肉发达的指标，并将这些指标与同时测量的活动和饮食信息以及我们已经掌握的婴儿期数据联系起来。我们还将了解父母对孩子超重的担忧程度，以及他们可能愿意接受的预防干预措施。

Rates of obesity in childhood are rising rapidly, with potentially enormous implications for future health. Overweight is usually measured by relating weight to height using the body mass index (BMI). BMI tracks from childhood and as early as age five may predict future mortality. Thus childhood obesity seems to represent a time bomb that we ignore at our peril. On the other hand we know that that the majority of todays fat adults were not themselves overweight in childhood, other studies have found that thinness in early childhood may also relate to poorer adult health and we know that BMI is measuring build and lean mass as well as fatness. If we are to plan effective and safe interventions it is thus a matter of urgency that we find out more about which individuals in early childhood are truly fat and how this relates to feeding patterns, physical activity and family lifestyles.The Gateshead Millennium Baby Study is already following 1029 children recruited at birth in 1999 and 2000 and we have information on feeding, growth and social circumstances from birth to 13 months. We will study these children again aged 6-7 years in order to collect a range of measures of fatness, build and muscularity and relate these to activity and diet information measured at the same time, as well as the infancy data we already hold. We will also find out how worried parents are about their childrens overweight and what sorts of preventive interventions they would potentially be willing to accept.