A recent study conducted in the Netherlands show a distinct link between overweight kids and risk of asthma. The study has shown that children who are overweight at age 6 to 7 years are at increased risk for developing symptoms of asthma like shortness of breath and “twitchy” airways when they are 8 years old.
However, if a child has been overweight before the 6 or 7 years, but has normal weight by that age, there are no signs of increased risks, according to the study.
“These findings suggest that being overweight may affect a child’s development of asthma symptoms,” Dr. Salome Scholtens from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in Bilthoven told Reuters Health.
“However, if a previously overweight child develops a normal weight, then the asthma symptoms are less likely to persist. We propose that development of a normal weight might positively affect asthma symptoms in overweight children,” Scholtens added.
Scholtens and colleagues had the parents of 3756 children report their children’s weight every year for eight years. The parents were also instructed to report any episodes of wheezing or other breathing difficulties as well as the use of inhaled steroids. The researchers then the children to see how sensitive their airways were to various inhaled allergens.
When the children were 8 years old, 275 (7.3 percent) wheezed, 361 (9.6 percent) had difficulty breathing and 268 (7.1 percent) had a prescription for an inhaled steroid in the preceding year.
According to the researchers, children who were persistently heavy from a very young age and between age 6 to 7 years were 68 percent more likely to have breathing difficulties and 66 percent more likely to have twitchy airways at age 8 than children who were leaner in childhood.
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