Obesity 'set before age of five'

More child abuse.

"Childhood obesity is set before the age of five, ministers will hear from researchers later.

Compared to children in the 1980s, today's youngsters are fatter and most of their excess weight gain happens before school age, they will say.

This suggests initiatives to prevent childhood obesity should be started before school, suggest the authors...

At birth, the children in the study were of similar weight to babies 25 years ago, but had gained more fat by puberty compared with children of the same age in the 1980s."

So much for the genetics.

"The bulk of this excess weight was gained before the children were five.

Weight at five years bore little relation to birth weight, but closely predicted weight at nine years old.

Before an obese girl reaches school age she will have already gained 90% of her excess weight, and boys will have gained 70% of their excess weight."

How can this happen?

How about a big dose of stupid to explain the mystery?

"'What is causing it is very difficult to know.'

He said there must be a factor now that was not there 25 years ago which is making today's children obese.

And, given the young age, this is likely to be in a child's home rather than school environment and linked to upbringing rather than schooling."

"Very difficult to know"?

Bull. Your fat ass, it is.

Any ideas?

What could this factor be?

Microwave ovens?

Paint without lead?

Fire-retardant pyjamas?

Maybe, just maybe, too many Calories in?

"Rather than lack of physical exercise, he believes diet could be to blame.

'It is entirely possible that the calorie density of food and portion sizes could be higher.'"

Duh.

"He said strategies to prevent childhood obesity and its associated health problems, such as type 2 diabetes, might do better to focus on pre-school children.

Professor Wilkin said there had been a lot of focus on school meals, PE time, school runs, television viewing and computer games in the development of childhood obesity, but these are all issues for school age children.

But he said the mandatory measurement of the height and weight of all children in England on school entry at the age of four or five could be helpful, not only as a record of national obesity trends, but also as a pointer to future risk for the individual child."

Absolutely.

But there is an even better, earlier approach.

Fat parents-to-be should be placed on a "Watch List" when they receive pre-natal care or enter the sick care system in order to deliver their at-risk children.

Social services should perform follow-up, at a cost to the fat parents, and monitor the children for the development of overfatness. Possibly their insurer could do the same as a service included in the higher premiums fatso parents pay.

Also, fat parents should be required to take training in proper caloric intake control for themselves and their children before and/or soon after the birth, for which they will pay.

Of course, it is better to discourage fat people from having children until they shed the pounds first since being overfat exposes embryos, fetuses and infants to risks that intended-sized humans don't.

"David Haslam, of the National Obesity Forum, said: 'It is never too late or too early to intervene. The earlier the better in terms of long-term outlook.'

He said early childhood obesity was likely to be down to environment and learned behaviours."

Actually, it is too late when we agree to rescue fat people from the consequences of their behavior at no cost to them solely and at a cost to the rest of us.

But with certainty, early childhood obesity is due to environment and learned behaviours.

And the parents are to blame.