Tracking BMI-for-Age from Birth to 18 Years with Percent of Overweight Children who Are Obese at Age 251
Whitaker et al. NEJM: 1997;337:869-873
Notes:
The tracking of BMI that occurs from childhood to adulthood is clearly shown in data from a study by Robert Whitaker (Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati) and his colleagues. They examined the probability of obesity in young adults in relation to the presence or absence of overweight at various times during childhood. For example, in children 10 to 15 years old, 10% of those with BMI-for-age < 85th percentile were obese at age 25 whereas 75% of those with a BMI-for-age > 85th percentile were obese as adults and 80% of those with a BMI-for-age > 95th percentile were obese at age 25. (The sample size for the study was 854.) From this study, it is clear that an overweight child is more likely than a child of normal weight to be obese as an adult.
Other studies have shown this same trend of tracking occurring from childhood to adulthood.