Reports coming into Ukmedix show that American babies are getting fatter than previously. A new study showed that there was a 74% increase in newborn to six month old babies who are overweight as well as a 59% increase in babies at risk of becoming overweight. The results come from data from 120,000 children up to the age of 6 that was conducted as part of the Massachusetts Health Maintenance Organisation between the years 1980 and 2001.

The researchers said that this shows that the obesity that is plagueing America is uniform in its application and even the youngest children are effected by it. The results that were published in the journal Obesity made note of the height and weight of the children that were taken at regular doctor’s visits and the data was fed into a central database. The results showed in kids 6 and below the number of overweight patients increased from 6.3% to 10% and the number of those at risk of overweight rose from 11% to 14%.

When the data was applied just to babies below the age of 6 months of age it was seen that in the years 1980-81, 3.4% were overweight and around 7% were defined as at risk of becoming overweight. However 20 years later it was seen that 5.9% of the babies were overweight and another 11.1% were defined as being at risk of becoming overweight. The researchers said this is a very clear indication that the number of overweight infants and children is rising.

The study did not look into whether the kids continued to be overweight as they reached their teenage years or whether they lost weight but other research projects have shown that overweight children often end up being overweight adults.