Bone problems common in heavy kids
 

Overweight and obese children have more aches and pains in their muscles and bones than their normal- weight peers. Musculoskeletal problems may lead normal-weight children to be less active and put on weight, while such problems can make it more difficult for heavy children to exercise to trim down.

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The researchers hypothesised that a vicious circle results wherein being overweight, musculoskeletal problems, and a low fitness level reinforce each other.
In adults, being overweight or obese is known to contribute to musculoskeletal problems, especially in the legs and feet but little is known about how excess weight might affect children’s muscles and bones.
To investigate, researchers surveyed 2,459 children 2 to 17 years old in Netherlands. About 7 percent of those normal weight children aged 2 to 11 years old had musculoskeletal problems in the two weeks before being interviewed compared with more than 11 percent of those who were overweight and obese.
This relationship held for those children aged 12 to 17 years old, with about 38 percent of those of normal weight having such problems and just more than half (almost 51 percent) of the overweight or obese children having aches and pains in their muscles and bones.
That translated to overweight and obese children 2 to 11 years old being almost twice as likely to have had musculoskeletal problems than their normal weight peers, while the likelihood for heavy 12- to 17-year-old children was 1.7 times that for normal weight children of the same age group.
Overall, the heavy children were 1.6 times more likely to have musculoskeletal problems than the normal weight children, and were close to two times more likely to have foot and ankle problems.
Overweight and obese children 12 to 17 years old were nearly twice as likely to see their doctors for musculoskeletal problems in the course of a year.
The above findings show that it’s important to be aware of the higher occurrence of musculoskeletal problems in these children, to provide adequate management of their problems and to give healthy lifestyle advice proactively.