TUESDAY, Nov. 9 (HealthDay News) — Obese teenagers are 16 times
more likely to become severely fat adults than teens of normal weight,
new research finds.
Someone who is severely fat is about 100 pounds or more above their
ideal body weight, according to the study’s senior author, Penny
Gordon-Larsen, an associate professor of nutrition at the Gillings School
of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

“We were looking at adolescent weight position and how it relates to the
development of severe blubber in adulthood because we’re concerned that
obesity and severe blubber have both increased over time, and during the
period from teen to young adult, there’s an increased risk for weight
gain,” explained Gordon-Larsen.
“Our study demonstrated that fat adolescents are at risk for becoming
severely fat in adulthood, and I think if people comprehend the risk of
severe obesity, which is a lot of extra weight, they might be motivated to
make changes. Teens might at least be motivated to maintain their current
weight,” she said.
Results of the study are published in the Nov. 10 issue of the
Journal of the American Medical Association.
Severe blubber — defined as a body mass index above 40 — heightens
the risk for a number of health complications, including type 2 diabetes,
high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma and arthritis. In addition,
people who are severely fat can anticipate significant reductions in life
expectancy, according to background information in the study.
Gordon-Larsen and her colleagues reviewed data from the U.S. National
Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health on 8,834 people who were 12 to 21
years old in 1996. The study had two follow-up periods: the first from
2001 to 2002 and the second from 2007 to 2009.
At the begin of the study, 79 teens (about 1 percent) were considered
severely obese. By 2009, 60 of those people (70.5 percent) were still
severely fat in adulthood, the investigators found.
Also by 2009, an additional 7.9 percent of those who hadn’t been
severely fat as teens were now classified as severely fat adults.
Black women were the most likely to become severely fat as adults,
reported the study.
Teens who were fat at the beginning of the study were 16 times more
likely to become severely fat adults compared to normal-weight or
overweight teens.
“This is really setting these children up to have significant health
challenges later in life,” stated Gordon-Larsen.
“We need to try to intervene and prevent blubber primeval in life, and if
we have an fat adolescent, we really need to work to prevent severe
obesity,” she said.
“I wasn’t especially surprised by the study’s findings. Other research
has also shown that weight during adolescence is very predictive of weight
in adulthood,” stated Dr. Goutham Rao, clinical director of the Weight
Management and Wellness Center at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
And getting teenagers to change their habits might be difficult, he
noted. “If you have a 3-year-old, it’s relatively simple to influence that
child’s intake habits because you wage all the food. With adolescents,
it’s much more complicated because they’re often making their own food and
drink choices and their habits are more entrenched,” he said.
But parents still wage the bulk of food in a teen’s diet and can set
up a healthy food environment at home by not providing sweetened beverages
and making healthy snacks, like fruits and vegetables, available, he
added.
Other important tips, he said, are to limit fast-food consumption to no
more than once a week, limit screen time to two hours a day, and to
encourage some exercise each day. It’s also important to try to have at
least one parent take dinner with your teenager most days of the week.
One bright note in this study was that about 30 percent of severely
obese teens didn’t go on to become severely fat adults, suggesting that
it is doable to change even entrenched lifestyle habits.
And “the younger they are, the more chances you have to make changes,”
added Rao.

More information

The Weight-control Information Network has information for teens on healthy lifestyle habits.