Is your child at risk for heart disease?

What they found was startling: in the obese children, there was 27% more muscle mass in the left ventricle, and their heart muscles were 12% thicker.

Obese children as young as eight already have signs of thickening in their hearts. None of the children involved in the study showed any physical symptoms due to the fact that they still have age on their side, but the researchers warn that the damage early on may be irreversible and could lead to complications in adulthood. In addition, parents should limit their kids’ access to television, PC, and video games while encouraging more outdoor activities. “As a result, this means the actual burden of heart disease in obese children may have been under-estimated in our study because the largest kids who may have been the most severely affected could not be enrolled”, Jing said. Researchers excluded children with diabetes and those who were too large to fit into the magnetic resonance imaging machine to have measurements taken of their heart.

Scans of obese youngsters revealed a glimpse of significant heart disease and heart muscle abnormalities, according to new research.

According to the latest figures from Public Health England, 15% of English children aged two to 15 are clinically obese and 29% are either obese or overweight. Half of the children were obese while half were considered normal weight.

The prevalence of childhood obesity in the United States has leveled off in recent years, but remains high.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and by the American Heart Association Great Rivers Affiliate.

“We know that to be true for the liver”, she says, adding her hope is that it will also prove to be true for a thickened heart muscle.

“Parents should be highly motivated to help their children maintain a healthy weight”, said Jing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the percentage of obese children in the USA under 11 has more than doubled in the past three decades, to almost one in five.

“This evidence of cardiac remodeling was present in obese children as young as age 8”, Jing and colleagues wrote in a summary of their findings, presented to a meeting of the American Heart Association.

The researchers reported that although not all the obese kids in the study showed signs of heart disease, seeing these signs in kids as young as 8 years old was alarming. Researchers are now beginning a longer-term study to find out more, including how conditions change over time, Fornwalt said.

The researchers noted that their study could be underestimating the effects that obesity has on children’s hearts since they did not include children on the heavier side. “These findings highlight the concerning long-term health trajectory for those with severe pediatric obesity and suggest that bariatric surgery can meaningfully and durably improve long-term outcomes in teens with this disease”.