Dick after school

Children become fat after enrollment

08/01/2012

After school, children become fat. Scientists at the University of Mainz have examined at what age children tend to become overweight and found out that the enrollment seems to be a deadline. The cause is the researchers so far unclear.

The research team around the Mainz sports physician Professor Pericles Simon has based on the data of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the in the 2003-2006 ongoing study „According to the latest report from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), the scientists were supported in their study by the Department of Cognition and Health Perception of the University of Tübingen.

Number of overweight children increases massively after enrollment
To analyze the data, the researchers used a procedure introduced by the Tübingen cognitive psychologist Rolf Ulrich, „that, in contrast to the typical data analysis in age groups, allows a more objective assessment of exactly when stronger changes in records can be found“, reports the JGU. This method showed, „that the maximum increase in overweight children in Germany is quite narrow around the age of 7.2 years.“ While only ten percent of the children were overweight at the age of five, this already applies to 20 percent of German children from the age of eight.

Proportion of obese children dropped below five-year-olds
Compared with the numbers of overweight children 20 years ago, according to the researchers, the five-year-old has changed little. Furthermore, the proportion of obese people in this age group is ten percent. In the first five years of life, it can even be said that the children today are slightly lighter than they were 20 years ago, according to the announcement of the University of Mainz. From the age of five, follow „then three years in which, unlike an international and a German comparison population of that time, we can suddenly find a significant increase in overweight“, explained Sascha Hoffmann from the Institute of Sports Science at the JGU. This proportion of obese people remains relatively constant over puberty to the age of majority.

Important findings for the fight against obesity
According to the researchers provide their findings „important starting points for the fight against the progressive overweight in Germany.“ In the coming years, they want to investigate even more closely the impact of school enrollment on the weight of children. Study director Prof. Pericles Simon warns, however, of premature conclusions, which „the reasons for the increase in weight especially in everyday school life suspect.“ The sports physician stressed that „our children were enrolled 20 years ago and today in a similar school environment“ come. Nevertheless, none was appropriate in the past „rapid increase in overweight“, Prof. Simon continues. The researchers go there „of a rather complex interplay of several factors, which are likely to be predominantly in the home environment of children.“ Presumably, the basis for the massive increase in the proportion of overweight after school enrollment already laid in kindergarten age. To investigate this further, according to the JGU „already conducted a baseline survey in 35 day care centers in Mainz. “ (Fp)

Also read about overweight:
Television makes children fat in the long term
Advertising on TV makes children overweight
The thickest children in Europe live in Italy
Fixed mealtimes prevent overweight

Picture credits: Kathi Paul