Overweight children face an increased risk of developing high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood insulin levels by the time they reach adolescence, researchers warn today.
Campaigners said the findings reinforced the need to enable children to have healthy lifestyles.
Cathy Ross, of the British Heart Foundation, said: "Overweight children who successfully tackle their weight problem by the time they reach adolescence appear to be able to reduce their risk of heart disease which is really positive news.
"However, we must work to prevent them becoming overweight in the first place as many obese children don’t achieve a healthy weight.
"Helping youngsters to understand lifestyle messages can be very challenging but making sure they balance healthy eating with regular physical activity is vital.
"It means they can achieve and maintain a healthy weight whilst still enjoying the food they love throughout their lives."
In the first study of its kind to investigate the link between weight and heart disease, researchers found that high body mass index(BMI) between the ages of nine and 12 was associated with adverse heart disease risk factors at age 15-16, even when the analysis was adjusted for a wide range of other factors.
Professor Debbie Lawlor, from the University of Bristol, UK, assessed the BMI, waist circumference and fat mass of 5,235 children between the ages of nine and 12.
When the children reached adolescence, 15-16 years of age, their blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose and insulin levels were tested, according to the report in the British Medical Journal. Positive results in these tests are risk factors for heart disease.
While the BMI was associated with heart disease risk factors, waist circumference or fast mass measurements were not linked with adolescent heart disease risk factors any more strongly than BMI.
Children with a high BMI who shed the weight by the time they reach adolescence had better heart disease risk profiles than those who remain overweight.
“Our findings highlight the need to shift the whole childhood population distribution of adiposity downwards and to develop interventions that safely and effectively reduce weight and improve cardiovascular risk factors in overweight/obese children,” the authors add.
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