Increasingly it is being shown that what we eat as a child play a significant role in future disease risk. This may be one factor that explains the association between poverty and disease. The seeds of obesity may therefore be sown during the early years of human life through the consumption of particular foods that are obesogenic in nature. Low quality foods that are overly processed and contain high amounts of sugar are particularly obesogenic, because they are easy to overeat, and it has been suggested that the amount of such foods consumed as a child may play a significant part in disease progression as an adult. A number of studies have investigated the association between childhood eating patterns and obesity and its related conditions such as insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and nonalcoholic fatty liver. Theory suggests that overeating energy leads to the nutrient overload syndrome, a situation whereby insulin resistance develops as a result of increased oxidative stress in the cells due to nutrient oversupply.
For example, in one study1, researchers explored the association between energy intake as a child and subsequent risk nonalcoholic fatty liver during adulthood. Energy intakes at ages 3, 7 and 13 years were associated positively with nonalcoholic fatty liver development in later life. However, individual macronutrients did not show positive associations. Therefore high intakes of total energy as a child may increase the risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in adulthood, itself a symptom of the development of metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance. Insulin resistance has been shown to develop in as little as two weeks in rats following high intakes of refined crystalline sugar. In humans, insulin resistance can also develop quickly at high intakes of sugar. However, these results suggest that there may exist a slower and more incipient development of insulin resistance that occurs over decades through regular consumption of energy rich foods, and which does not require high intakes of sugar.
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