Start obesity prevention in the cradle, study urges

Really, stop early nutritional child abuse before it starts.

A team of US doctors has urged that obesity screening start in the cradle after a study they conducted showed that half of US children with weight problems became overweight before age two.

The "critical period for preventing childhood obesity" in the children observed in the study would have been in "the first two years of life and for many by three months of age," said the study, published in Clinical Pediatrics.

"Unfortunately, the chubby healthy baby myth is alive and well despite the high prevalence of childhood obesity, with only 20 percent to 50 percent of overweight children being diagnosed and even fewer receiving documented or effective treatments," the authors of the study said.

For the study, which was conducted to try to pinpoint the "tipping point" for when a child first became overweight, researchers looked at 480 medical records for patients between the ages of two and 20 at a private medical practice and a teaching hospital, both in Virginia.

Of those patients, 184 were included in the study because they met the age criteria, their weight and height had been recorded during five visits to the medical practice, and they were overweight during one of the visits.

The researchers found that the median age for when the children became overweight was 22 months. They also found that a quarter of the children reached their overweight "tipping point" at or before five months of age.

I am pretty sure that the dates are not as certain as presented, however, the principle remains true:

Do not abuse children nutritionally at any time and if you do, stop as soon as possible.