New research out of All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg reveals “very few at-risk children are able to outgrow their weight risk during school age."

Dr. Raquel Hernandez, assistant professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and associate director of medical education at All Children’s Hospital, was lead investigator of the study.

Hernandez said it’s a long-standing expectation from parents and providers that with time, children outgrow obesity when they’re young, so she set out to find out if it happens and how often.

“We found that fewer than one in five children outgrow their risk of obesity, and if they’re gonna do it, they’re gonna do it between the ages of kindergarten and first grade," Hernandez said. "They’re not gonna do it later on."

Weight can be a sensitive subject, but Hernandez says the research suggests it’s a conversation parents and pediatricians should be having when children are at pre-school age.

“It’s really a formative time. That’s when you’re learning from your parents how to eat, what to eat, developing your taste,” Hernandez said.

“Really, before those behaviors have been kinda finalized, that is a great time to start making those changes and just start role-modeling healthy habits.”

Hernandez said the research underscores the importance of achieving healthy weight before kindergarten.

“We identified children who had maintained a healthy weight at kindergarten were very able to maintain a healthy weight by the fifth grade,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez said she hopes the research sparks conversation.

“What I hope that our findings suggest to parents is to ask that question and for providers to be more willing to have those conversations with families,” she said.

Here are the key findings of the research:

  • Fewer than 1 in 5 kindergarteners identified in at-risk weight categories outgrow their at-risk weight by 5th grade.
  • Hispanic children were less likely to maintain a healthy weight or return to a healthy weight during their early school years.
  • Children were most likely to return to a healthy weight between kindergarten and first grade, while few children return to healthy weight in later grades.
  • Seventy percent of children who had healthy weight as kindergarteners maintained their healthy weight as they grew older, a finding that suggests healthy weight at an early age is a powerful predictor of healthy weight in later childhood - a phenomenon the researchers call "obesity resilience."

All Children’s Hospital has weight management and fitness programs for children and teens to help teach healthy eating habits.