Childhood obesity.Obesity and Asthma Risk in School-Age Children Gilliland FD, Berhane K, Islam T, McConnell R, Gauderman WJ, Gilliland SS, Avol E, Peters JM. 2003. Obesity and the risk of newly diagnosed asthma in school-age children. Am J Epidemiol 158:406-115. Both asthma and obesity have been rapidly increasing in incidence among children in the past 20 years. Health care providers have explained this association as evidence that children with asthma are less likely to engage in physical activity and therefore more prone to gain weight. However, this interpretation has been challenged in recent studies, including this work by an NIEHS-supported research team from the University of Southern California The U.S. News & World Report ranked USC 27th among all universities in the United States in its 2008 ranking of "America's Best Colleges", also designating it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 8,634 of the almost 34,000 who applied for freshman admission . The team studied the association of newly diagnosed asthma and the development of obesity using data collected at yearly assessments over a six-year period. The data were gathered as part of the Children's Health Children's Health Definition Children's health encompasses the physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being of children from infancy through adolescence. Study of Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, , a longitudinal study longitudinal study a chronological study in epidemiology which attempts to establish a relationship between an antecedent cause and a subsequent effect. See also cohort study. of respiratory health among nearly 3,800 youngsters aged 7-18. Most of the children were white or Hispanic. About 20% had a history of physician-diagnosed allergy; 24% of the boys and 21% of the girls reported ever experiencing wheeze wheeze (hwez) a whistling type of continuous sound. wheeze v. To breathe with difficulty, producing a hoarse whistling sound. n. A wheezing sound. . The data revealed that new-onset asthma was diagnosed about 1.5 times more often among overweight and obese o·bese adj. Extremely fat; very overweight. obese characterized by obesity. obese adjective Characterized by obesity, see there; excessively fat children. Boys had a slightly higher risk of about twofold. Interestingly, the effect of being overweight was about twice as high in nonallergic children as in children with documented allergies (the authors note, however, that this difference may be due in part to an underreporting of allergy). These findings may have important public health implications in the battle to control the epidemics of both asthma and obesity in children. During the last decade alone, the prevalence of overweight in U.S. children has increased by 40%. If being overweight does indeed contribute to developing asthma, public health professionals may need to target obesity prevention in their efforts to control asthma. Further longitudinal epidemiologic and mechanistic mech·a·nis·tic adj. 1. Mechanically determined. 2. Of or relating to the philosophy of mechanism, especially one that tends to explain phenomena only by reference to physical or biological causes. studies are necessary to confirm these results and to identify all causes of the childhood asthma epidemic. |
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