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As if being a tween is not hard enough, scientists
now call it an age when girls are especially at risk of getting fat.
Girls are more likely to become overweight between
age 9 and 12 than during their teenage years, researchers report in The Journal of
Pediatrics.
The study could not say why that was and did not
examine boys to know if they face a similar risk. But it did highlight consequences of that
adolescent weight gain. Chubby tweens already were seeing their blood
pressure and cholesterol levels inch up, backing up earlier research
that fat's toll on the arteries begins early. Also, being overweight in
childhood brought more than a ten-fold risk of a youngster's growing
into a fat adult.
Parents should pay attention to creeping waistlines
and poor dietary habits, particularly in this age group, said Dr. Denise
Simons-Morton of the National Institutes of Health, which funded the
research.
"It seems to be a particularly vulnerable period,"
said Simons-Morton, who heads obesity-prevention efforts at the NIH's
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
Some 17 percent of U.S. youngsters are obese and
millions more are overweight, a problem affecting all ages. Overweight
children are at risk of developing diabetes and they grow into
overweight adults who, in turn, develop heart disease and other
ailments.
The study tracked more than 2,300 white and black
girls starting at age nine. Researchers measured height, weight, blood
pressure and cholesterol every year through 18. Participants were called
in their early 20s to check their weight.
Some 7.4 percent of the white girls and 17.4
percent of the black girls already were overweight by nine. Each year
through age 12, between two percent and five percent of the remaining
girls became overweight, reported Douglas Thompson of the Maryland
Medical Research Institute, the paper's lead author.
After the girls reached 12, new cases leveled off
to between one percent and two percent a year.
Other research has shown that the preteen years are
when youngsters switch from heeding parents' dietary advice to eating
like their friends do, Simons-Morton said. Less physical activity plays
a role, too. She recalls from her own daughters' tween years, long
sedentary hours on the phone and worries about getting sweaty. "It should be cool to be physically active, and
attractive," she said.
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