Consequences of adaptation to increased physical activity in obese children

Abstract

Some selected problems pertaining to an uneven development of body composition and body weight were elucidated during investigations of groups of obese children examined in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies at a different age and in children with varying degrees of obesity.—The serious character of child obesity from the prognostic medical aspect is recently being discussed with increasing emphasis. Statistics indicate that overweight children account for cca 10–15% of the child population of Czechoslovakia (Ošancová et al. 1972, Ošancová and Hejda 1974 etc.). In adult and advanced age the proportion of overweight, obese people increases further. This trend is relatively constant in industrial countries (Tremolières 1971a, b etc.); in developing countries the number of obese children is much lower, but in social strata which have a similar standard as industrially developed countries the prevalence is, however, probably similar.