In Pune, child obesity is a big issue
Anuradha Mascarenhas
Pune, July 10: SO you thought a fat child was a healthy one? Think again. Obesity (excessive body fat) has increased to such an extent that researchers at KEM hospital have shown, in an ongoing study, that men and women who were small at birth (low birthweight) have an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance syndrome.
This is the first Pune children’s study in which the CVD risk factor was measured in 480 children born at KEM hospital. Birth-weights were obtained from labour ward records. Children were studied at the age of four and eight years with a consistent follow-up every year, says Dr Sheila Bhave, consultant in paediatric research at KEM hospital and one of the co-investigators of the study.
These children who are being studied will be 18 years old next year and a detailed metabolic investigation is being planned, says Dr Ashish Bawdekar, consultant in paediatric gastroenterology at KEM hospital. The study has been funded by Wellcome Trust, UK and Medical Research Council, UK.
Dr Anand Pandit, Head of the Department of Paediatrics, KEM hospital is the Principal Investigator of the project while Dr Caroline Fall, consultant in nutrition at Southampton, UK is one of the investigators. Dr C S Yajnik, diabetologist is another co-investigator.
According to Bhave, when the children were re-studied at eight years, there were clear inverse relationships between birth-weight and the number of features of insulin resistance syndrome, whererin despite the presence of insulin, the body was unable to metabolise glucose. The most adverse risk profile was in children who were small at birth but had a high weight and fat mass at eight years.
‘‘We recently published one more finding where the children who have this insulin resistance syndrome also go into early puberty,’’ says Bhave. Here the investigators have suggested that guidelines advocating nutrition to ‘normalise’ growth in infancy may actually increase adult morbidity and should be changed, says Bawdekar.
Bawdekar who is also one of the members of the national task force that lays down guidelines on child obesity says that there is a hurry to ‘catch up’ with the child’s weight. Particularly for a baby who was born small, and here small could be as low as two kg at birth, says Bhave, who is also a member of the task force.
‘‘This ‘catch-up’ growth is going to be harmful,’’ says Bawdekar. They have suggested that mothers should now check their babies weight as per the Body Mass Index (BMI) weight chart and not just feed him/her excessively during the infancy and early childhood years.
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