For children who are overweight, gaining a few extra pounds
comes with sharper increases in blood pressure than those seen
in kids of normal weight, a new study suggests. For most kids,
increases in body mass index, or BMI (a measure of a person's
weight in proportion to her height), seem to cause an increase
in blood pressure, though the exact cause of the link is not
known. But for kids with a BMI in the 85th percentile of kids
their age (so 85 percent of their peers have a lower BMI), each
1-percentile increase in BMI brings a blood pressure increase
nearly five times greater than the blood pressure increase seen
in kids of normal weight. The 85th percentile is considered the
threshold for being overweight. The findings also show if an
overweight child loses just a few pounds, the impact on blood
pressure can be great, study researcher Wanzhu Tu, an associate
professor of medicine at Indiana University, told
MyHealthNewsDaily. Prior to this finding, "one would be likely
to overestimate the BMI effects on b