A team of specialists from the HM Hospitales Research Foundation (FiHM) has conducted a study in which it identifies a "window of opportunity to reverse childhood obesity," located between the ages of two and five.
"This work demonstrates that the age at which we act is decisive," pointed out its president, Professor Alberto Muñoz Terol, who emphasized that "there is a biological window in which the body responds much better to interventions on lifestyle habits." "If we manage to act at that moment, the chances of recovering a healthy weight increase considerably," he added.
To reach these conclusions, the research, whose results have been published in the specialized journal 'Nutrients', has followed for five years a large cohort of 37,465 minors aged between zero and 18 years treated in the HM Hospitales care network.
"These results provide a scientific basis to reinforce early prevention strategies for childhood obesity," continued Muñoz Terol. The work also confirms that, starting from the age of six, the ability to reverse excess weight is significantly reduced and what the researchers call the "fat trap" is established, a phase in which overweight tends to persist over time.
Currently, childhood obesity continues to be one of the greatest public health challenges: one in four European children aged between seven and nine is overweight and one in ten is obese. Despite slight decreases in prevalence detected in recent years, Spain remains the sixth European country in excess weight and the seventh in childhood obesity.
In this context, the FiHM has promoted the first scientific publication derived from its Childhood Obesity Observatory, a project based on the strategic analysis of real clinical data from the Group's care activity. Led by Dr. Zelmira Bosch, the work has integrated information from 102,228 clinical consultations carried out in the entity's hospitals in Catalonia, Madrid, Galicia, Castilla y León, and Castilla-La Mancha.
Evolution of BMI and "metabolic plasticity"
Thanks to this volume of data, experts have been able to reconstruct the longitudinal evolution of the body mass index (BMI) and analyze how weight changes as children grow. "The main finding of the study shows that children between two and five years old present a high metabolic plasticity," they have pointed out.
"And regardless of whether they initially presented overweight or obesity, approximately three out of four regain a normal weight, which makes this stage a true window of opportunity to intervene through changes in diet, physical activity, and family habits," the researchers have insisted, to emphasize that "on the contrary, the data show a very significant change starting at six years old."
In this regard, specialists highlight that "in this age group, 60 percent of children with obesity continue to present obesity one year later, while one in four children with overweight progresses to obesity."
Furthermore, they have highlighted "another aspect especially relevant for clinical practice," which is that "after the first medical assessment, many children with overweight or obesity experience a rapid improvement in their BMI, suggesting that early intervention and clinical support can have a beneficial effect from the early stages of monitoring."
"This finding will guide clinical and public health strategies to prevent obesity from becoming a chronic disease," emphasized the first author of the work, Dr. Juan Pablo González-Rivas, summarizing the main conclusion. Along with the other authors, he has also stressed that "delaying intervention may encourage obesity to consolidate and subsequently become much more difficult to reverse."