Chubby babies are adorable, sure, but a new study shows that overweight or "obese" babies (researchers shy away from attaching the label to kids so young) are likely to stay that way—and a huge number of infants fall into those categories. Almost 32% of babies are obese or overweight by nine months, and that number rises to 34% by two years, LiveScience reports. The study looked at the weight of 7,500 children born in 2001 over time.
Children who were normal weight at nine months had a 75% chance of remaining at normal weight by two years—but kids in the “at-risk” category (similar to overweight for adults) had just a 50% chance of transitioning to normal weight by two years; more than 28% actually moved up to the obese category (defined as those in the 95th percentile of weight) by that time. For obese nine-month-olds, the situation was even more sobering: Just 37.6% achieved normal weight by two years, while 18% moved to at-risk, and 43.9% stayed obese. Click to see how you can halt childhood obesity before birth.
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