Overweight children have doubled the danger for premature death compared to that of children having a normal weight, and children with pre-diabetes also face twice the danger of an early demise. Additionally, children who have high blood pressure are at an amplified risk of dying young.

A current study of about 4,857 non-diabetic American Indian children born between 1945 and 1984 found that childhood fatness was linked to the occurrence of an early death. At the regular age of 11 years, factors such as body mass index (BMI), glucose tolerance, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels of each child were assessed in predicting the probability of premature death. Findings exposed that obese children had a much greater likelihood of dying prior to reaching the age of 55, due to illness or self-inflicted damage. The effects of the study point out that childhood fatness can cause grave long-term consequences on health.

A total of 559 of the study members were deceased by 2003. Among these deaths, 166 were due to causes other than accidents and homicides including infections, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, alcohol poisoning, and drug overdose. Additionally, a high number of the deaths were caused by alcoholic liver disease that may have been exacerbated by diabetes. Adult subjects having the highest BMI scores as children were found to be 2.3 times more likely to have died prematurely as those having the lowest BMI scores. In addition, those having the uppermost glucose levels were 73 percent more likely to have died early.

The research, in recent times published in The New England Journal of Medicine, is one of the prevalent to have followed children well into adulthood, over a period spanning several decades, after having gathered comprehensive information on weight along with other risk issues.