[Childhood body mass index and the risk of coronary heart disease in adulthood]

Abstract

The severity of the long term consequences of the current childhood obesity epidemic on coronary heart disease is unknown. Therefore we investigated the association between body mass index (BMI) at ages 7-13 years and heart disease in adulthood among 276,835 Danish schoolchildren. We found that higher BMI during this period of childhood is associated with an increased risk of any, non-fatal and fatal heart disease in adulthood. Worldwide, as children are becoming heavier, our findings suggest that greater numbers of children are at risk of having coronary heart disease in adulthood.