If we needed any more proof that childhood obesity is a plague
that will haunt this country for years to come, a study
published in the New England Journal of Medicine offers more
ammunition for quick and dramatic action to address this tide of
adiposity. If you don’t have time to read it, here it is in a
nutshell: a study of 276,835 Danish children ages 7 to 13 years
old found that those who were overweight had a higher risk of
developing coronary heart disease in adulthood than those who
were a normal weight, with the association being stronger in
boys than in girls. The conclusion? That not only can the roots
of coronary heart disease start as early as 7 years old, but
that even small increases in a child’s BMI can elevate the risk.
In the study, the authors noted that an overweight 13 year-old
boy has a greater than 33 percent risk of developing coronary
heart disease in adulthood than a boy of normal size. Another
study in the same issue, this one on overweight teens, projected
that the increasing preval