The pre-school child: diet, growth and obesity.

In this review the question of obesity in the pre-school child has been examined in three areas of interest: first, the extent of our knowledge of food intake and its relationship to growth in the young child; secondly, the difficulties in defining obesity on a practical level in this group, and thirdly the constraints in the examination of energy balance because of the limitations of techniques available for this type of work. The conclusion is that studies are needed to analyse factors regulating energy balance, and thereby explain why, in the very young child, there is an individual difference in the utilization of energy for growth, activity and basal processes.