Having younger siblings lowers obesity risk

Having a younger sibling may lower your chances of becoming obese, a study has found.

That is if the younger sibling is born before the elder one goes to Grade one, or when the elder one is between the ages of two and four.

According to the US study done, children with younger siblings are more likely to engage in more ‘active play’, which will in turn help them maintain a healthier body mass index (BMI).

"It is possible that when there is a younger sibling in the family, a child might become more active – for example running around more with their toddler sibling. Maybe families are more likely to take the kids to the park when there is a younger sibling, or maybe the child is less likely to be sedentary, watching TV, when there is a younger sibling to engage them in more active pretend play," senior author Julie Lumeng, pediatrician at University Of Michigan, said.

The study also suggests that parents may do lifestyle changes before the arrival of the younger siblings, which will be of a health benefit to the elder sibling.

"When parents use restrictive (e.g. keep food from children) or pressure-to-eat feeding practices (e.g. try to get kids to eat more food), children have an increased risk of being overweight. When a new child is introduced, parents may relax their preoccupation with the older child’s eating behaviors, allowing the older child to respond to their own satiety cues and self-regulate their eating." said Jerica Berge, a researcher at the University of Minnesota.

"This self-regulation may lead to a healthier weight trajectory for the child with a sibling compared to a child without a sibling."

The study also found that children who didn’t have younger siblings before reaching Grade one had almost triple the chance becoming obese.