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Decision Scientist & PhD Candidate in Health Policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Professor of the Practice of Health Sociology & Director of the Health Prevention Research Center at Harvard Chan School of Public Health
Assistant Professor in the Department of Prevention and Community Health at Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University
Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Nutrition Department, Gillings School of Global Public Health at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor and Chair in Obesity Research and Management at University of Alberta
Metabolic and bariatric surgeon-scientist investigator at Vanderbilt University
Co-Director Center for Weight Management and Metabolic Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Chief of Bariatric and Minimally Invasive Surgery, Stanford University School of Medicine
Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management & Co-Director of the Obesity Prevention Initiative at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health
Professor of Bariatric and MIS Surgery, Director of the obesity chair at King Saud University
Metabolic Medicine Physician, University College Dublin
Professor and Chairman, Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children’s Hospital Colorado
Research Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health Sciences at University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Director, Center for Adolescent Bariatric Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital
Professor of Health Economics at the Institute of Health & Wellbeing at University of Glasgow, Scotland
Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics, The Ohio State University, College of Medicine. Surgical Director, Center for Healthy Weight & Nutrition, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio
Medical Director of Adolescent Bariatric Surgery, Attending Physician, Assistant Professor at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Original Article
Simulation of Growth Trajectory of
Childhood Obesity into Adulthood
Zachary J. Ward, M.P.H., Michael W. Long, Sc.D., Stephen C. Resch, Ph.D., Catherine M. Giles, M.P.H., Angie L. Cradock, Sc.D., and Steven L. Gortmaker, Ph.D.
November 23, 2017.
BACKGROUND
Although the current obesity epidemic has been well documented in children and adults, less is known about long-term risks of adult obesity for a given child at his or her present age and weight. We developed a simulation model to estimate the risk of adult obesity at the age of 35 years for the current population of children in the United States.
METHODS
We pooled height and weight data from five nationally representative longitudinal studies totaling 176,720 observations from 41,567 children and adults. We simu- lated growth trajectories across the life course and adjusted for secular trends. We created 1000 virtual populations of 1 million children up to the age of 19 years that were representative of the 2016 population of the United States and projected their trajectories in height and weight up to the age of 35 years. Severe obesity was defined as a body-mass index (BMI) of 35 or higher in adults and 120% or more of the 95th percentile in children.
RESULTS
Given the current level of childhood obesity, the models predicted that a majority of today’s children (57.3%; 95% uncertainly interval [UI], 55.2 to 60.0) will be obese at the age of 35 years, and roughly half of that cumulative incidence will occur during childhood. Our simulations indicated that the relative risk of adult obesity increased with age and BMI, from 1.17 (95% UI, 1.09 to 1.29) for over- weight 2-year-olds to 3.10 (95% UI, 2.43 to 3.65) for 19-year-olds with severe obesity. For children with severe obesity, the chance they will no longer be obese at the age of 35 years fell from 21.0% (95% UI, 7.3 to 47.3) at the age of 2 years to 6.1% (95% UI, 2.1 to 9.9) at the age of 19 years.
CONCLUSIONS
On the basis of our simulation models, childhood obesity and overweight will continue to be a major health problem in the United States. Early development of obesity predicted obesity in adulthood, especially for children who were severely obese.
Originally Appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine on November 23, 2017.
Decision Scientist & PhD Candidate in Health Policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Professor of the Practice of Health Sociology & Director of the Health Prevention Research Center at Harvard Chan School of Public Health
Assistant Professor in the Department of Prevention and Community Health at Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University
Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Nutrition Department, Gillings School of Global Public Health at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor and Chair in Obesity Research and Management at University of Alberta
Metabolic and bariatric surgeon-scientist investigator at Vanderbilt University
Co-Director Center for Weight Management and Metabolic Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Chief of Bariatric and Minimally Invasive Surgery, Stanford University School of Medicine
Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management & Co-Director of the Obesity Prevention Initiative at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health
Professor of Bariatric and MIS Surgery, Director of the obesity chair at King Saud University
Metabolic Medicine Physician, University College Dublin
Professor and Chairman, Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children’s Hospital Colorado
Research Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health Sciences at University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Director, Center for Adolescent Bariatric Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital
Professor of Health Economics at the Institute of Health & Wellbeing at University of Glasgow, Scotland
Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics, The Ohio State University, College of Medicine. Surgical Director, Center for Healthy Weight & Nutrition, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio
Medical Director of Adolescent Bariatric Surgery, Attending Physician, Assistant Professor at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia