By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY
About 60% of toddlers and preschoolers who are overweight or obese during their preschool years still weigh too much at age 12, setting them on a path toward adult obesity and its attendant health problems, a study finds.

The finding could be a rude surprise to parents who think children will outgrow their baby fat. Research shows that overweight children and adolescents are at an increased risk of developing diabetes, high cholesterol and other weight-related health problems.

Scientists at 10 U.S. universities examined the records of 1,042 children whose height and weight were recorded seven times from ages 2 to 12.

The researchers define children as obese if they are in the 95th percentile of the weight-to-height ratio, meaning they weigh more than 95% of kids at the same height, and as overweight if they fall in the 85th to 95th percentile. These categories differ from those used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which doesn't call children obese. The CDC calls such children overweight or at risk of becoming so in those percentile ranges.

Findings of the new study, reported in September's Pediatrics:

• 80% of children who were overweight or obese during their early school years were overweight or obese at age 12.

• 40% of kids who were in the 50th percentile or above by age 3 were overweight or obese at 12.

• The more times a child reached the "overweight" category during the preschool and elementary-school years, the more likely he was to be overweight at 12.

"This is sobering but not hopeless," says lead author Philip Nader, professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. "We can be comfortable as pediatricians counseling parents to act early to make sure that kids get plenty of exercise, limit TV time, eat healthy foods, eat less fast foods."

Says Keith Ayoob, associate professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York: "This research means that lots of kids are going to be at risk for serious diseases decades before they should be. We don't have the luxury anymore to see if kids will outgrow their baby fat, because they are not doing it." Ayoob was not involved in the study.

Ayoob says parents often serve their kids "an enormous amount of food. Unless kids are doing manual labor in the fields, they don't need these huge portions."

Our parents tend to feed children lots of food. They think it's healthy. Hardly any parents want their babies to be thin........