Car Crashes Hurt Obese Children More

a lower bone density could have been causing the increases in fractures

Thousands of research projects have been done showing how obesity directly harms the health of children by increasing the chances of them suffering from heart disease, diabetes and a whole list of other illnesses as they grow up. Doctors are also aware of the psychological injury that can be done to children as they struggle to cope with teasing, bullying and other psychological pressures that obesity brings.

However a new study has highlighted a danger from obesity which is likely never to cross the minds of parents. The research which was undertaken at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School shows that the simple fact of being overweight or obese increases the chances of severe injury in a car crash by two and a half times when compared to normal weight children.

By using BMI scale the researchers looked at hundreds of cases of children involved in car crashes between the ages of nine and fifteen. All of the children in the study were in a vehicle being driven by their parents when the crash occurred. In 96 percent of cases the children were wearing some form of seatbelt and just over half of them were sitting in the front seat.

The lead researcher Dr Keshia Pollack explained that while they could not conclusively explain why the overweight and obese children were more likely to be injured in car crashes, she speculated that a lower bone density could have been causing the increases in fractures. It is commonly known among doctors that obesity reduces bone strength and this could well be the reason why more fractures are recorded in car crashes where obese children are involved.

With so many thousands of obese children in America and the European Union and in view of the fact that there are millions of car crashes every year this previously unrecorded side effect of obesity could be extremely serious and should warrant further study.