Obesity Can Be Predicted in Infants Aged Just 2 Months

A child's obesity risk can be predicted as early as two months in its infancy, claim researchers.

A study was conducted by the researchers at Case Western Reserve University's Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing and Tennessee State University. They found that infants as young as two months start exhibiting growth patterns, which are helpful in predicting the child's weight by age 5.

"Almost from birth, we quickly saw this growth pattern emerge in our curves and growth charts for weight over height," Susan Ludington, the study's lead author and the Carl W. and Margaret David Walter Professor of Pediatric Nursing at Case Western Reserve University, said.

The researchers analyzed height and weight the babies. They found that normal-weight babies with a body-mass index (BMI) in the 17 percentile plateaued at about two months and rarely deviated over the next five years.

They also found that obese babies crossed the 17 percentile after nearly 14 months and moved upwards when BMI growth patterns were observed.

The study revealed that normal-weight children by the age of five grew in a different way compared to obese or overweight children.

Citing previous studies, the researchers stated that this variation might be a result of different eating habits of mothers that might have contributed to a baby's hormones and the ability to satisfy a baby's hunger.

The graph pattern showed that both girls and boys known to be obese at 5 begin to show significantly higher weight over height than normal weight babies as early as 2-4 months of age.

Due to such patterns, the researchers were able to predict the weight of the child by age 5 at the early age of two months.

The researchers state the findings as important as it could possibly change the age at which obesity is diagnosed, which is currently done at age two. The findings were published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics.