Effects of Obesity in Children:
Obesity in Children Linked to Heart Disease

Take hours in front of the TV or playing video games, add snack foods, chips and sugary soft drinks and you have the recipe for what is becoming an epidemic of weight problems in children today. Recent UK research has shown that as many as a fifth of 7 to 11 year olds are overweight and more than a tenth are obese.

Most worryingly, a study of more than 2,500 infants revealed that obesity rates in preschool children rose by 80% over a single decade.

The extra weight can bring heart disease, according to researchers in the USA. One US study found that the arteries of many teenagers are already clogged so badly that they could trigger heart attacks and that high blood pressure in children, once considered rare, is now increasingly common.