The term "tracking" is an anglicism used to refer to the drag of obesity over the years, specifically the transition from childhood obesity to obesity in adulthood.
It is known that early childhood obesity has a tendency to persist over the years and that adult obesity and all its morbidity pose a major public health challenge. Obesity and overweight are clinical conditions that are far from being a simple aesthetic problem and that already affect a large part of the population since childhood.
That is, if you are overweight as a child, there is probably "tracking" and there are more chances that as an adult you will be obese and suffer from related health problems, more serious over the years. A child can live up to four years less by being obese.
And it is that nutritional factors and sedentary lifestyles are related to almost a third of premature deaths due to cardiovascular diseases in Europe, as well as 30-40% of tumors, osteoporosis and their complications. Overweight and obesity are linked to the development of type 2 diabetes, even from early ages.
The correlation between obesity of children and adolescents with that of adult life increases with age. A study conducted in Boston showed that the risk of "traking" at age 35 is 8 to 10 times for children of ten years with excessive body mass index (BMI), when compared with children of normal weight. This risk increases to 35 times in women and 56 times in men who have been obese at age 18.
There are also studies that show that BMI, blood pressure and cholesterol in childhood are directly related to the variation in BMI over time and with pressure and cholesterol in adulthood.
Childhood obesity is a big problem that begins to affect not only developed countries, but also those in development within the urban context. Even, it already affects babies, increasing the risk to health.
Why childhood obesity tends to persist over the years to adulthood, in this phenomenon called "tracking", and that is why it is so important to try, since they are very young, to have healthy habits to avoid the risks that shorten the life expectancy of people.
