More and More Kids Have Chronic Health Problems

Kudos, fatsos.

The prevalence of chronic conditions in childhood has increased over time, with much variation in how long the conditions persist, researchers found.

In three cohorts of children followed from 1988 through 2006, the number of children who had a chronic condition at any time increased from 27.8% in the earliest cohort to 51.5% in the latest, according to Jeanne Van Cleave, MD, of MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston, and colleagues.

But the presence of the conditions, which included obesity, asthma, other physical impairments, and behavior/learning problems, was fluid during each study period, they reported in the Feb. 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association...

The mean age of the mothers and the rate of maternal obesity increased with each progressive cohort.

When all cohorts were pooled together, all categories of chronic conditions increased from baseline to the end of the study (P<0.001 for all):

Obesity: 11.9% to 13.3%
Asthma: 2% to 3.6%
Other physical conditions (such as allergies and chronic ear infections): 3.9% to 5.7%
Behavior/learning problems (such as ADHD and mental retardation): 1% to 4.7%

For obesity, the baseline rate increased significantly with each progressive cohort, from 7% in 1988 to 12.3% in 1994 to 19% in 2000.

You are child abusers making your kids sick.