At risk of obesity or just big boned? A new tool that calculates a baby鈥檚 risk of becoming obese may settle the matter at birth. The creators of the tool hope that it will encourage parents to take early action to improve their children鈥檚 health.
To develop their tool, Anita Morandi at the University of Verona in Italy and colleagues analysed data from 4032 people born in Finland in 1986.
They were particularly interested in which factors were most predictive of actual obesity. These factors included body mass index (BMI), birth weight, whether the mother smoked during pregnancy and her occupation.
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They then tested the formula they derived, the 鈥渙besity risk calculator鈥�, on birth data from 1503 Italian children now aged 4 to 12 and from 1032 US children aged 7. About 75 per cent of the babies predicted to be at the highest risk of obesity actually became obese.
Harmful predictions?
The tool could be used to identify children who have almost no risk of developing child obesity, says Morandi. The remaining children will have varying degrees of risk, she says, but every one of them would be 鈥渁n appropriate target for focused prevention鈥�.
There are caveats though. Morandi says the formula cannot account for certain de novo genetic mutations 鈥� genes present in the baby but not in the parents 鈥� that may increase a child鈥檚 obesity risk.
at the University of Glasgow, UK, says that roughly 25 per cent of the tool鈥檚 predictions are false positives 鈥� inaccurately predicting future obesity. Unnecessary measures might be taken with very young children, she says. 鈥淚n extreme cases an inaccurate prediction could be harmful.鈥�
And many of the environmental factors that influence the risk of obesity can change over a child鈥檚 life, says health researcher at the London School of Economics. These can be 鈥渉ard to account for鈥�, he adds.
Stigmatisation
The model seems to be accurate, says at the University of Birmingham, UK. 鈥淎 few predictors often carry the majority of the risk.鈥�
However, he questions how effective the tool will be in practice. For example, will it always be acceptable to get the BMI of obese parents? Stigmatisation is a problem, he says, and it can lead to those who are most at risk being excluded.
Even if you predict the risk of obesity successfully, it is not clear what measures should be taken, says Thomas. Getting people to make lifestyle changes is really hard, he says. 鈥淎 lot of societal pressures work against it.鈥�
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