Older Overweight Children Consume Fewer Calories Than Their Healthy Weight Peers

One of the worst study and conclusions combos you will ever see.

A new study by University of North Carolina School of Medicine pediatrics researchers finds a surprising difference in the eating habits of overweight children between ages 9 and 17 years compared to those younger than 9.

Younger children who are overweight or obese consume more calories per day than their healthy weight peers. But among older overweight children the pattern is reversed: They actually consume fewer calories per day than their healthy weight peers.

How to explain such a seemingly counterintuitive finding?

"Children who are overweight tend to remain overweight," said Asheley Cockrell Skinner, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics at UNC and lead author of the study published online Sept. 10, 2012 by the journal Pediatrics.

"So, for many children, obesity may begin by eating more in early childhood. Then as they get older, they continue to be obese without eating any more than their healthy weight peers," Skinner said. "One reason this makes sense is because we know overweight children are less active than healthy weight kids. Additionally, this is in line with other research that obesity is not a simple matter of overweight people eating more -- the body is complex in how it reacts to amount of food eaten and amount of activity."

These results also suggest that different strategies may be needed to help children in both age groups reach a healthy weight. "It makes sense for early childhood interventions to focus specifically on caloric intake, while for those in later childhood or adolescence the focus should instead be on increasing physical activity, since overweight children tend to be less active," Skinner said.

There is no complexity.

There is no need for a different approach.

There is only one explanation.

These fat kids are eating more Calories than they burn.

And the intended-weight kids are eating the appropriate number of Calories for what they burn.

(There is a related explanation that gets to the same result. The fat kids are lying about the number of Calories they are eating since this was a self-reported intake study. That kind of study is the pimple on the ass of research accuracy/integrity. Especially since fat people are famous for being incorrect (untruthful) re: the number of Calories they shove down their gullets.)

Without doubt, these researchers are, IMHO, grossly unqualified.

Cut, as in stop, their funding.

And another reason why all funding to discover the cause of overweight/obesity should be termminated.