Children are obese due to overfeeding NOT a lack of exercise, say scientists



Food to blame: A new study blamed poor nutrition for childhood obesity, rather than a lack of exercise. (Posed by model)

A lack of exercise is not to blame for increased levels of childhood obesity, scientists have claimed.

A new report suggests that physical inactivity appears to be the result of fatness, not its cause.

Researchers now believe that overfeeding by parents and children eating more junk food is the root cause of weight gain.

The report also said targeting nutrition rather than exercise was the best way to help obese children lose weight.

The EarlyBird team followed more than 200 children in Plymouth over three years, monitoring their fat and exercise levels at regular intervals.

They found that body fat levels had an effect on physical activity, but that varying activity did not lead to any changes in fatness.

The paper, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, suggests that overweight children may think about their body negatively, shying away from sports and exercise as a result.

Study director Professor Terence Wilkin, of the Peninsula Medical School, Plymouth said the findings have 'profound' implications for national health policy.

He said: 'It is well known that less active children are fatter, but that does not mean - as most people assume it does - that inactivity leads to fatness.



'It could equally well be the other way round: that obesity leads to inactivity.'



Professor Wilkin said the research suggested improving a child's diet at an early age could be the answer to tackling obesity.



'The implications are profound for public health policy, because the physical activity of children - crucial to their fitness and well-being - may never improve unless the burgeoning levels of childhood obesity are first checked,' he said.



'If this cannot be achieved through physical activity - the focus has to be on what and how much children consume.'

The Early Bird study also found a strong link between childhood weight gain and parental obesity - but only parents of the same gender.



The team reported that a daughter of an obese woman was 10 times more likely to be obese than a girl with a mother of normal weight.



Dr David Haslam, from the National Obesity Forum, welcomed the study but cautioned that the wider health benefits of exercise for children must not be overlooked.

He told the BBC: 'The EarlyBird team really force us to question our comfortable assumptions regarding childhood obesity. What we, as clinicians must do, is nod reverently at their work, learn lessons from it, and reappraise our own practices accordingly.

'What we shouldn't do is take the paper at face value and allow lean children to be as lazy as they please, as that would be a catastrophic mistake.'

A Department of Health spokesman added: 'We are committed to tackling childhood obesity and this study provides some useful messages on the importance of a child's early years and the impact this can have on their future health and behaviour.



'We will consider this evidence alongside other research which has different findings on the link between physical activity and weight when we are developing our policy to produce better public health outcomes.'

