AAAAI: Asthma Tracks Childhood Obesity

More about the effects of nutritional child abuse.

Overweight children who become overweight young adults appear to have an increased risk of developing asthma compared with children who don't carry extra pounds or whose weight normalizes as they grow, researchers reported.

In a study of more than 800 children and young adults, those who were overweight in elementary school and after high school were 2.4 times (P=0.017) more likely to have asthma compared with those who were normal weight from childhood through late teens.

"The effect was more pronounced among boys," said Minto Porter, MD, a fellow in allergy and immunology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, during her poster presentation at the annual American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology meeting here.

In her study, male subjects were 3.3 times (P=0.048) more likely to have asthma if they were overweight as children and as young adults. Girls had a 1.9-fold increased risk of having asthma (P=0.09), Porter said.

The results were consistent regardless of the presence or absence of atopy, Porter told MedPage Today.

She did note that children who are overweight as 6- to 8-year-olds and whose weight then normalized by the time they finished high school did not appear to have a statistically significant risk of developing asthma (P=0.73).

Another reason to hold the parents of fat kids accountable.