Source: Panna
Get your kids to exercise, eat right, and control their portions — these steps can help combat childhood obesity, we’re told. But new research on persistent chemicalspoints to the fact that as parents, we’re not getting the whole story.
Researchers in Spain found that whether a child, especially a girl, will be obese is not just dependent on lifestyle choices, but also on the child’s exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) before birth. As a mother of a 4-year-old daughter, this worries me tremendously.
The Spanish researchers followed 344 children from birth to age 6.5 years, and found that exposure in the womb to certain POPs such as DDE (the breakdown product of DDT) and PCBs are clearly linked to children becoming overweight later in life.
Read More: Obesity & pesticides: The untold story
Cartoon by Bob Moran
