Cardiac and Metabolic Risk Factors Significantly More Likely in Severely Obese Teens

Compared to normal weight adolescents, severely obese teens had at least a 2-fold greater risk of having high total cholesterol, triglycerides, and fasting glucose levels, and a greater than 5-times increased risk of elevated blood pressure. These cardio-metabolic risk factors varied with weight, with risk greater for severely obese children and teens compared to moderately obese and normal weight youngsters, as reported in a study published in Childhood Obesity. “These findings dramatize the heightened cardiovascular disease risks associated with severe obesity even among teenagers,” says Childhood Obesity Editor-in-Chief Tom Baranowski, PhD, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX. “While causality cannot be inferred from these analyses, they do indicate that effective treatment programs are urgently needed for severely obese teens, and more effective prevention programs are needed at much earlier ages.”

Full bibliographic information:
Cardiometabolic Risk Factors among Severely Obese Children and Adolescents in the United States, 1999-2012
Li Linlin, Pérez Adriana, Wu Li-Tzy, Ranjit Nalini, Brown Henry S., and Kelder Steven H.. Childhood Obesity. January 2016