Childhood obesity’s cardiovascular consequences might be reversible with timely intervention, after a Swedish study demonstrated that children who were overweight but achieved normal weight by young adulthood had similar coronary heart disease risk to their “never-overweight” peers.
- Childhood obesity is often tied to adult CHD, but whether these risks were permanent remained unclear.
- So it’s important to understand when the critical windows for intervention are and whether or not obesity timing affects long-term cardiovascular outcomes.
The BMI Epidemiology Study analysis linked health records to nationwide registries for 103k people in Sweden to track their BMI changes from childhood through young adulthood and examined CHD outcomes over a mean 37.8-year follow-up.
- Childhood overweight BMIs (HR 1.15) and young adult overweight/obese BMIs (HR 1.71) each led to increased CHD risk (5.6% of individuals ultimately experienced CHD).
- Children who were overweight but achieved normal weight by young adulthood had CHD risk equivalent to those maintaining normal weight at both timepoints (HR 0.98), bringing their risk back to normal as well.
- Obesity during puberty carried significantly greater CHD risk than long-term childhood obesity (HR 1.23), indicating timing of weight gain matters beyond duration.
It’s worth noting that this longitudinal study did not include lifestyle factors, but it still lends support to the importance of reversing unhealthy weight trends in children as soon as possible since developmental changes can rapidly increase risk.
- For example, the high CHD risk caused by obesity during puberty likely has ties to the way children’s hormones work.
- This is also supported by earlier research on teenage BMI changes that found increased stroke, heart failure, cardiovascular death, and coronary atherosclerosis risks.
Given that getting back to a normal weight by young adulthood also returned individuals to a normal CHD risk level, the findings support aggressive childhood obesity intervention as a window to prevent lifelong cardiovascular disease burden.
The Takeaway
It used to be assumed that childhood obesity was devastating for a person’s long-term health, but this study tells us that may not be the case, at least when it comes to coronary heart disease. It’s also a reminder that it’s never too late or too early to maintain a healthy weight.
