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Curbing the Obesity Epidemic |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: The obesity epidemic has become a major public health problem in both industrialized countries and the developing world. The fact that obesity is mainly determined before puberty implies that preschool detection of children at risk is essential along with individual prevention programs provided by the school health services in liaison with specialists. In June 20th issue of PLoS ONE, a Swedish study reports a protocol that detects with high precision 30% of all obese pre-adolescent children already at age 5 using only weight and height data. The protocol selects boys having a body mass index (BMI) above the international standard for obesity at both age 4 and age 5, and girls having a BMI higher than 20 at the age 5 for individual weight-reduction programs. This extension of the protocol is likely to require inclusion of new observation in the routine health monitoring of pre-school children, such as family heredity for obesity and eating behaviours.
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