Medical expert of the article
New publications
Clean air prevents obesity in children
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
17% of children in the United States are obese, and in poor areas this figure reaches 25%. The main causes of excess weight are poor nutrition and low physical activity, although, as it turns out, air pollution also plays a major role in this “epidemic”.
A study conducted by scientists at the Columbia Institute (United States) showed that women from New York who were exposed to high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) during pregnancy had children who were almost twice as likely to be obese at age 5 than the offspring of mothers who breathed clean air, and twice as likely to be obese at age 7. In addition, seven-year-olds whose mothers “received” air with the highest levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons had a kilogram more fat deposits than children of those who were exposed to the lowest level of pollutants.
PAHs are a common urban pollutant that enters the air when coal, diesel fuel, oil, gas or other organic substances such as cigarettes are burned.
The results of the work echo the results of experiments conducted with rodents and tissue samples. Thus, experiments on mice demonstrated that under the influence of PAHs, rodents gain excess weight due to fatty tissue. And experiments with cell cultures showed that treating them with pollutants prevents lipolysis - the breakdown of fats into fatty acids under the influence of lipase.
[