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Overweight Hispanic infants in an urban area: Saturated fat as a contributing factor
Author(s) -
Espinosa Carolina,
Ramos Isabel,
Collado Jennifer,
Worobey John
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.25.1_supplement.603.4
Subject(s) - overweight , environmental health , medicine , obesity , endocrinology
Aside from influencing weight itself, saturated fat has been positively related to cardiovascular disease in the overweight and obese. Research indicates that this is also evident in children. We have found 20% of low income Hispanic toddlers in our research sample to be at or above the 95th percentile for weight/length/sex, with an additional 19% between the 85th and 95th percentiles. Our aim in the present analysis was to examine if saturated fat was a significant contributing factor to overweight status at 24‐months of age. Mothers were recruited at WIC when enrolling their infants, with sociodemographic information and anthropometric measurements taken. At their 2 year home visit, 24‐or‐48 hour diet recalls were available for 81 subjects. Food intake was analyzed using Nutritionist ProTM software, with other data analyzed using SPSS. Approximately 56% (45/81) toddlers had saturated fat intakes in excess of the 16g recommended upper limit. Milk was the primary source of saturated fat for both the under and over 85th BMI percentile groups. Our analyses suggest that these Hispanic toddlers, predominantly Mexican, of low‐income mothers with limited education, are eating on a par with toddlers whose mothers represent a higher socioeconomic status. Risk for overweight notwithstanding, their saturated fat intake would not appear to be a significant problem for them at this stage of development.