Heart risk for fat kids

BEING overweight before the age of 12 months can change the structure of the heart, a study says.

A test of more than 400 children found the early signs of severe heart damage in those who were obese. British experts said “alarm bells should be ringing’’ at the findings.

The Romanian researchers scanned the hearts of 455 children, aged from infancy to those in their teens. They found that obese children had heart walls 25 per cent thicker than those of a healthy weight.

Having thick heart walls puts people at risk of abnormal heart rhythms, heart failure and cardiac arrest later in life, and is an early marker of heart disease.

Concerningly, thick heart walls were also seen in 54 babies below the age of one, and 125 toddlers younger than three. All the babies had been bottle fed, which the experts said was linked to higher rates of obesity.