Curbing Childhood Obesity: Appetite Holds the Key

A recent study suggests that children with heartier appetites may be at a greater risk for obesity than those with a healthier desire for food.

Statistics show that 36 percent of the U.S. population is obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Thus, many health complications may result in cancer, diabetes, heart diseases and sleep apnea due to overweight or obese individuals.

According to researchers from the UCL Health Behavior Research Centre in the United Kingdom, they found that weight gain can be directly influenced by two aspects of appetite, including lower satiety responsiveness and higher food responsiveness.

The findings are discussed via two papers published in JAMA Pediatrics that discuss the obesity topic: One which reveals that infants with a healthier appetite grew more rapidly till around age 15 months at which time they were potentially put at a greater risk for obesity.

"It might make life easy to have a baby with a hearty appetite, but as she grows up, parents may need to be alert for tendencies to be somewhat over-responsive to food cues in the environment, or somewhat unresponsive to fullness," said Professor Jane Wardle, lead author of the study from the UCL Health Behavior Research Centre, via a press release. "This behavior could put her at risk of gaining weight faster than is good for her."

The second paper discusses how low satiety responsiveness may act as one of the mechanisms that hide under a genetic predisposition to obesity. For this information, researchers studied 2,258 10-year old children born in the United Kingdom between 1994 and 1996.

"As expected, we found that children with a higher PRS score (more obesity-risk' genetic variants) were likely to have larger BMI and waist circumference," said Dr Clare Llewellyn, lead author from the UCL Health Behaviour Research Centre, via the release. "But more importantly, we also found that these children were more likely to have low satiety responsiveness"

"This suggests that satiety sensitivity could be targeted for pharmacological and behavioral interventions, to prevent or treat obesity. For example, children with lower satiety sensitivity could be taught techniques that might improve their fullness signals when eating, such as slowing their eating speed. Another approach might be to provide better advice to parents and children about appropriate portion sizes, limiting access to 'second helpings' and ensuring tempting treats are out of sight between meals."

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