Obesity hard on feet of young
EXCESS fat is taking a serious toll on the feet of obese children as young as two, an unusual Australian study has found.
Researchers at the University of Wollongong enlisted a group of 17 overweight and obese preschoolers to study the pressure extra weight puts on their feet while walking.
They found the feet of all the children, aged between two and five, made more contact with the floor and at more force than another similar group of leaner children.
The overweight children had a lot more pressure under all parts of the foot, suggesting they were exposed to “stress” and vulnerable to soft tissue damage and bone fatigue.
Extra weight was a well-known cause of lower limb problems in obese teenagers and adults but this work, published in the latest International Journal of Pediatric Obesity, is the first to show that even overweight preschoolers are affected.
The results come as 2000 obesity experts gathered in Sydney this week for the International Congress on Obesity to develop strategies to deal with the epidemic.
Childhood Obesity