Obesity declining in young, poorer kids: study

[FUZO]

TweetNEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The number of low-income preschoolers who qualify as obese or "extremely obese" has dropped over the last decade, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

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[RockShawn]

TweetThat is interesting and encouraging, however I hate the BMI system they use. Even for children there are differences in musculature and bone structure that would put a fit kid in the obese category. To me it's not an accurate system and can be damaging to some.

[bandaidwoman]

TweetI teach an evolutionary medicine course.

In part, some of this is due to the public health policies of advocating breast feeding due to the known data regarding developmental plasticity in organisms.

Developmental plasticity in evolutionary biology is when the same genetic blueprint produces completely different phenotype ( or physical manifestation). In other words, the same architectural blueprint produces two completely different buildings. Epigenetic processes provide a biological mechanism on how environmental influences can affect the phenotypic variation of a generation, ( usually by methylation of the DNA sequence or histone complexes). Much of this programming takes place in the uterus but the window of plasticity extends outside the in-utero environment and around the time of birth. Children who are breast fed are far less prone to developing obesity than their formula fed counterparts. That is why there is such a public health push for breast feeding that is being taught to the poor women ... the wealthier educated women have always known the benefits of breast feeding.....

A simple example of developmental plasticity in the animal kingdom is when female bee larvae are fed exclusively royal jelly, they become fertile,queen bees but when the same female larvae are fed exclusively worker jelly, they develop into sterile, worker bees.