 | | | | Related Healthscout Videos | |
|
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >> After accounting for potentially mitigating factors -- such as the child's age, sex, and restraint and seating status, as well as the car type, accident type, accident severity, and the driver's age -- the researchers found that there was no significant increase in the overall risk for incurring some kind of moderately severe injury or worse.
However, the risk for incurring a severe injury to the limbs, specifically, was more than two-and-a-half times greater for overweight and obese children versus normal-weight kids.
The connection between excess weight and limb injury risk is the "million dollar question," Pollack said.
Text Continues Below
"There's not a lot of research that has looked at this, and we were somewhat surprised by the finding," she said. "So now we need to do more biomechanical study to look at the different types of forces in crashes and how they relate to body mass. It could also be that something is going on with physiology in terms of bones and bone strength, and the diminishment of bone strength relative to body weight among obese and overweight kids."
"But clearly, the impact of the association can be dramatic and immediate in terms of car crash injuries," Pollack said, "so we really need to think about this additional consequence of children being overweight and obese."
Lona Sandon is an assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. She believes there are a number of factors related to childhood obesity that might account for the heightened risk.
Sandon noted, for example, that the physical inactivity often associated with being overweight could play a determining role. Inadequate consumption of calcium and/or vitamin D, which are both key to the development of strong bones, is also a hallmark of poor, high-calorie diets, she added.
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >>
|
.gif)
