Australian children who are overweight before they start school are likely to remain heavy through to adolescence, a national study suggests.

The study, which looked at more than 5000 preschoolers aged four and five and then studied them again two years later, showed that almost all of the 21% of children who were overweight before they started school remained overweight…

Associate Professor Melissa Wake, from the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital, said the study showed there was a strong correlation between a child’s body mass index at age four and at age six.

“The biggest finding seems to be that overweight and obesity seems to be pretty much established before you go to school,” she said. “The prevalence of overweight and obese children has pretty much stayed the same; if anything it has fallen a little … so by and large there has been very little change in children’s body mass index…

In 2004, researchers found there was a strong link between a father’s parenting style and his child’s weight. It found that fathers who had few rules were more likely to have heavier children, while authoritarian fathers had lighter kids.

It also found that a mother’s parenting behaviour or style wasn’t associated with having a heavier child.

“That was quite surprising because mums do get a lot of the blame for their children being heavy,” she said. “So often there is an overt criticism of mums, what they buy, what they feed, what they do … and we found no suggestion that maternal parenting style was associated with obesity.”

Subsequent research two years later showed as children got older parenting styles had little further influence on their weight.

“This wasn’t surprising because weight status was fairly well established by age five,” Professor Wake said.

She said overall the research suggested early years might be critical in determining a child’s future weight — and it was important that both mothers and fathers be included in preschool obesity prevention and intervention.

Source: The Age, Australia
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