Los niños con escaso autocontrol probablemente serán adolescentes con exceso de peso, según un estudio de la Universidad de Michigan ( English Version Follows )

U-M researchers say.





ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Does your child have a harder than normal time resisting temptation? Whether it’s with toys or food, that inability to wait can lead to weight gain as they reach their pre-teen years.





Young children who display an inability to delay gratification appear predisposed to be over-weight by their pre-teen years, according to University of Michigan researchers.





In a University of Michigan study that is one of two reports appearing in the April issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, researchers used a waiting task to gauge 4-year-olds' ability to delay gratification.





The children were asked to choose candy, animal crackers or pretzels as their preferred food and left alone with two plates of different quantities of the food.





Children were told that they would be allowed to eat a larger quantity of the chosen food if they waited until the examiner returned. If they could not wait until the examiner returned, they could ring a bell to summon the examiner back into the room, at which time they could eat the small quantity.





Of the 805 children who participated, 47 percent failed the test, either by ringing the bell before a seven-minute waiting period elapsed, spontaneously beginning to eat the food, becoming distressed, going to the door or calling for a parent or the examiner.





Those who displayed a limited ability to delay gratification were 29 percent more likely to be overweight at age 11 than those who could delay gratification, says Julie Lumeng, M.D., a developmental and behavioral pediatrician with the University of Michigan Health System and one of the study’s authors.





The study tried to control for effects of parenting by asking mothers if they expected their children to delay gratification for food, for example, by not allowing the child to snack whenever he or she wants to. Researchers found no impact of the mother’s answer on the relationship between the child’s ability to delay gratification and risk of becoming overweight.





“Even when the mom said she expects the child to be able wait in their daily life ...