Obesity Odds Stacked against Minority Kids

(AP)  The odds of obesity appear stacked against black and Hispanic children starting even before birth, provocative new research suggests.

The findings help explain disproportionately high obesity rates in minority children. Family income is often a factor, but so are cultural customs and beliefs, the study authors said.

They examined more than a dozen circumstances that can increase chances of obesity, and almost every one was more common in black and Hispanic children than in whites. Factors included eating and sleeping habits in infancy and early childhood and mothers smoking during pregnancy.

In a separate, equally troubling study, researchers found signs of inflammation in obese children as young as 3 years old. High levels were more common in blacks and Hispanics.

These inflammatory markers have been linked with obesity in adults and are thought to increase chances for developing heart disease. Their significance in early childhood is uncertain, but the study's lead author says she never thought they'd be found in children so young.

"We think that fat cells in the body cause inflammation and that inflammation causes vessel damage," said University of North Carolina researcher Asheley Cockrell Skinner, the lead author.

The results suggest that 3-year-olds with inflammation might already have artery changes that could make then prone to later heart problems, although that needs to be examined in future research, she said.

Both studies were released Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Dr. Reginald Washington, a Denver pediatric heart specialist who has worked with the American Academy of Pediatrics on obesity issues, called both studies important.

He said they underscore the merit of first lady Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity.

"You still have to get the public to say we believe this is a problem," Washington said. "Everybody's going to have to play a role here."

Twenty percent of black and Hispanic children ages 2 to 19 are obese, versus 15 percent of whites, recent government data show.

In the racial disparities study, risk factors examined included: mothers smoking during pregnancy; unusually rapid weight gain in young infants; starting solid food before 4 months; mothers' routinely pressuring young kids to eat more; children sleeping less than 12 hours daily between 6 months and 2 years; and allowing very young kids to have sugary drinks, fast-food, and/or TVs in their rooms.

Minorities were at higher risk than whites for nearly every one.

"It's striking," said lead author Dr. Elsie Taveras of Harvard Medical School.

The researchers questioned 1,826 Boston-area mothers, but Taveras said the study results apply to youngsters nationwide.

Many circumstances studied are more common in low-income, less educated families, including whites. Taveras said the researchers accounted for that and still found race was frequently a factor regardless of income.

The results may reflect cultural beliefs or influence from grandparents on feeding practices, but the good news, she said, is that almost every risk factor studied can be changed.

The separate, inflammation study involved data on more than 16,000 children aged 1 to 17 who had blood tests during 1999-2006 national health surveys.

Inflammation markers including a substance called C-reactive protein or CRP were measured. CRP levels of at least 1 milligram per deciliter of blood have been linked with heart disease risks in adults.

Starting at age 3, very obese children were more likely than less heavy kids to have levels at least that high. Even higher levels were most common in black and Hispanic kids.

Skinner said it's unlikely that elevated levels will cause problems at age 3. But researchers don't know if the presence of these markers at such a young age might put children at risk for heart problems early in adulthood.

Infections also can cause elevated CRP levels; the researchers took that into account and also excluded children with chronic illness.

The results are preliminary and do not mean that parents of obese kids should rush out and have their kids' CRP levels tested, Washington said. That's partly because it's not clear if lowering CRP levels in obese kids, through weight loss for example, would make any difference, he said.

[gig76]

On the other end of the spectrum, we have children from wealthy families who overuse prescription drugs for ADHD to study more intensely, can easily purchase high grade illicit drugs, and tend to be more anorexic, bulemic, and purging victims, which has its own consequences of low blood pressure, underweight, bone and muscle loss. Wealthy parents usually don't really care about their children except that they are to be overachievers through use of drugs and keep weight control through obsessive behaviors.

[Observer1504]

Very often fast food and bad food are the only meals available to inner-city children. There is almost a total lack of supermarkets or farmers markets in those areas and for very good reasons .. theft and robbery being just two.

[chevyhotrod]

How is it that the poor in America are obsese and in every other country the are thin? Sometimes scary thin.

How is that?

Answer: I am from the government and I am here to help.

[MPHgrad]

At least this report evaluates cultural/social norms as contributing factors instead of the strict adherence to a belief in heredity which encourages excuses and discourages personal responsibility. I've long advised that cultural habits are inherited not all chronic conditions. If you continue to eat poorly in observation/practice of your cultural norm (e.g. fried foods, few vegetables), then you are likely to inherit the chronic conditions that are prevalent to that culture as well.

[Aine57]

What no one seems to want to say a lot of times, too, is that if cultural norms are detrimental to the people in that culture, they need to be changed. If you have dietary habits that are destroying you, but you want the comfort that comes from familiar food, then have that familiar food just as it is now, but on special occasions only - on festival days. Make lower-fat, lower-starchy-carbohydrate variations with similar seasoning for the rest of the time. It doesn't help anybody's culture to survive if the people in that group are dying young or draining their families' finances unnecessarily through unnecessary, painful, preventable disease.

[SusanStoHelit]

No surprise cultural factors are an issue. And some of these are definitely poverty factors as well - it's much harder to keep breastfeeding up for more than 4 months when you have a min wage job, little or no time off for maternity, and no real opportunity to pump (let alone spare money to buy a pump). The poor can manage it - but it's much harder, so no surprise that fewer do it.

Sugary drinks, fast food - also cheaper and easier to get for the poor than good foods that will spoil and cost more. And when you are poor, and your parents and grandparents were - it all seems normal.

[countrycuz1]

Oh so...sugary drinks and fast food is cheaper? Wow...now that's news. Four value meals at Taco Bell or burger King costs me around twenty bucks. I can serve at least eight meals of boneless chicken breast, broccoli, and rice, bread, and milk for that. As to breast-feeding, both my kids were formula babies and ended up fine. My son had a slight weight issue which took care of itself when he hit Junior high and walked to school everyday. I think my favorite phrase was "no time off for maternity." When will people finally realize that making lame excuses for others, only hurts those people in the long run?

[countrycuz1]

Wow...could please try to come up with some better excuses than "fast food-also cheaper" and "..no time off for maternity" I can feed my family of four at least two healthy meals ( milk, chicken breast, salad, rice, roll, dessert) for what it costs to take them to Taco Bell!
The " no-time for maternity" statement is so far out in left field I won't even comment.

[countrycuz1]

Wow!!... stupid me!! And all this time I thought that weight was somehow related to exercise and energy expended in relationship to caloric intake. So, all these kids are obese because their moms smoked and are poor! I always thought my kid lost all that weight in 7th grade from eating healthier, getting up to walk to school everyday, and football,baseball, and basketball practice. Now I find out it was because I'm not receiving food stamps, his mom didn't smoke during pregnancy, and I have two jobs.

[Aine57]

For heaven's sake, go to a farmer's market! Produce is cheap anyway in comparison to prepared food or fast food, but in a farmer's market, you can really get your dollars' worth. Rice is dirt cheap, too, including brown or basmati which are far superior to that bleached stuff. Eat meat if you wish, but make it a much smaller part of your meal - a good balance of protein, good fat (not trans or high levels of saturated), and complex carbohydrates - lots of vegetables and fruit.

Even when you find produce that's a little costlier, the long-term value versus life-long health problems, expensive hospitalization and medication -- there's just no comparison.

And plenty of people find other ways to feed their infants. I knew a woman who had a good job whereas her husband's work record was much spottier. She pumped the breast milk and he fed the baby while she was in the lab. Don't think that absence from work is just a poor woman's issue; it isn't. Plenty of middle-class women have difficulty with this, too, and they don't get federal or state aid to stay home.

Smoking, drinking, age of mother - too young or too old - all of these are within your control. Television sets everywhere, and no limits on immobilization for your kids? Again, all within your power. No one can make you feed your children right or make them exercise; only you as parents have that domain and that responsibility.

[Brokennews]

Hummm.. I wonder which direction the blame cannon will be pointed on this one?

Because of course, nobody can be responsible for themselves!