Why Heavy Teens May Eat Less But Weigh More Than Their Thinner
Peers Originally published on Wed September 19, 2012 4:08 pm It
may be more important than we thought to tackle obesity in
childhood. A new study published in Pediatrics finds that
overweight teenagers eat fewer calories than their healthy
weight peers. That's right — they eat less. How much less? The
study found that among 12- to 14-year-olds, obese girls consumed
110 fewer calories daily than healthy-weight girls. And
overweight boys between the ages of 15 and 17 consumed about 375
fewer calories a day than healthy-weight boys. Up to the ages of
of 8 or 9, overweight children ate more calories than their
slimmer peers. But, "at about age 9 or 10, we start to see,
essentially, a flip," explains Skinner. Basically, heavier older
kids start to eat less. "One reason this makes sense is because
we know overweight children are less active than healthy weight
kids," explains lead researcher Asheley Cockrell Skinner of the
University of North Carolina,