Childhood Obesity and Coronary Heart Disease

Obesity is the most common nutritional problem among children in both developed and underdeveloped countries. Despite efforts over the past decade to prevent and control obesity, data from the 2003–2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) show that 16.3% of children and adolescents, 2 to 19 years of age, are obese (i.e., have a body-mass index [BMI] above the 95th percentile for age and sex). 1 There is strong epidemiologic evidence that obesity in childhood is associated with an increased incidence of atherosclerosis in adulthood. Postmortem studies have shown that obesity in childhood and adolescence is associated with increased evidence . . .