Overweight and, particularly, obese school-aged children show significant increases in measures of cardiovascular risk relative to their normal-weight peers, a BMJ meta-analysis shows. Editorialists remind readers that although the results are “worrying,” it is unknown whether those risks follow the children into adulthood, independent of adult weight.

The analysis looked at 63 studies including almost 50,000 children aged 5 to 15 years from highly developed countries. Average systolic blood pressure was 4.54 mm Hg higher among overweight children and 7.49 mm Hg higher among obese children, compared with their normal-weight peers. Obese children also had increased total cholesterol, fasting glucose, fasting insulin, and insulin resistance, as well as a 19-g increase in left ventricular mass.

The editorialists liken childhood obesity to climate change, which “is at times in danger of inciting an ennui borne out of a repetition of problems without answers.”

Source: BMJ