Are Children Doomed by What They Eat and Drink?

Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the industri-alized world. In parallel, the prevalence rates of hyper-tension and cardiovascular disease have increased dramati-cally. Most unfortunately, these increases have not been limited to adults, because obesity and hypertension have also been found to have risen substantially in children and adoles-cents as well.1,2 It seems that the rate of increasing body mass is directly related to the occurrence of hypertension in the pediatric population, because secondary forms of hyperten-sion have not been reported to have increased recently. It has long been recognized that a direct and continuous relationship exists between dietary sodium intake and blood pressure, as well as the prevalence of hypertension and associated cardiovascular disorders. However, this connec-tion has generally been reported for adults but not demon-strated for the pediatric age group. A recent report suggests that such a relationship can even be found among individuals between the ages of 4 and 18 years.3 In addition, fluid consumption and, particularly, the consumption of sweetened beverages, have been linked to childhood obesity.4 In the present issue, He et al5 provide further evidence of a link between salt intake and soft-drink consumption in the pre