More than half of today’s children will be obese at the age of 35 years, according to a recent study that examined early development of obesity and its continued risk into adulthood. A simulation model was developed to estimate the risk of adult obesity at age 35 years for the current population of children in the US. Height and weight data from 5 nationally representative longitudinal studies totaling 176,720 observations from 41,567 children and adults were pooled and growth trajectories across the life course were simulated and adjusted for secular trends. Researchers found:

• The models predicted that a majority of today’s US children (57.3%) will be obese at age 35 years, and half of the projected prevalence will occur during childhood.
• The simulations indicated the relative risk of adult obesity increased with age and body mass index (BMI), from 1.17 for overweight 2-year-olds to 3.10 for those aged 19 years with severe obesity.
• For children with severe obesity, the chance that they will no longer be obese at the age of 35 years fell from 21.0% at the age of 2 years to 6.1% at the age of 19 years.