Obesity Is a Preventable Risk for Developing Pediatric Asthma

It's well known that adult obesity is linked to asthma, but while the link between childhood obesity and asthma has been studied extensively, the results have been mixed and difficult to compare. In the hope of clarifying the matter, researchers designed a retrospective cohort study that grouped children aged 2 to 17 by body-mass index (BMI; overweight, 85th–94th percentile BMI; obese, ≥95th percentile BMI; and normal BMI). The BMI percentiles were adjusted for age and sex.

Data on about 500,000 children, from a network of U.S. pediatric medical centers, were included in the study. By design, 50% of the children had normal BMI and were matched to children who were overweight or obese. New diagnoses of asthma were made at a rate of 2.4 per 10…