600 children are wanted for a study of childhood obesity in schools

This is research from the University of Zaragoza. Participants, between 3 and 6 years old, will be assessed and followed up to determine risk factors associated with the disease. 

Childhood obesity in Spain has increased in recent years to reach figures "very similar" - above 25% - to those reported by researchers in the United States. Behind it are all kinds of factors, many of them linked to lifestyle, such as nutrition, diet and physical exercise. "If we do not start with healthy lifestyles from an early age, we can jeopardize the next generations living as long as our elders and doing so with a worse quality of life. There are studies in the US that already point in that direction, and I believe that we should not overturn the achievements we have achieved in this line," warns professor at the University of Zaragoza Luis Alberto Moreno, a leading figure in the study of nutrition and childhood obesity.

Supported by the Center for Biomedical Research in the Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition Network (CIBEROBN), the GENUD (Growth, Exercise, Nutrition and Development) research group carries out two programs in Zaragoza and the province with children between 3 and 6 years old. to determine the risk factors associated with this disease.

"We are inviting families to join because participation is not as high as we would like, and we will continue working until we have 600 children in the city," explains this expert in Childhood Nutrition and Obesity.

The figures they are considering to date lead them to be optimistic if appropriate measures are taken in this field. It is true - this researcher acknowledges - that the percentage of childhood obesity has increased, "a lot", in recent years. "It had a significant peak in the 80s and 90s, but now it seems that we are stabilized and it is even beginning to decrease a little," they clarify. Even with everything, we must not let our guard down.