Extra large

Parents of obese young children don’t have to worry about their large body size making them unhealthy in their teens.

A study by experts in Australia found that genetic factors influencing the size of babies may be different from the ones that influence body mass index (BMI) as a teenager, The Star (TS) reports.

“Size differences in younger children don’t necessarily reflect lifelong obesity risk,” said Dr. Wang Geng, the study’s lead author and University of Queensland Institute for Molecular Bioscience postdoctoral research fellow, according to TS.

The finding was based on the Children of the 90s study done at the University of Bristol in Britain. Its principal investigator, Prof. Dr. Nicholas Timpson, said BMI changes from one to 18 years old.

Meanwhile, the high BMI of a newborn delivered at the Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca, New York on 31 January shocked parents Terrica and Shawn.

The hospital shared a heartwarming photo on Facebook showing Shawn Jr. alongside four-pound Margot, born the same day to parents Chloe and Victor, New York Post (NYP) reports.

Shawn Jr. looked twice the size of Margot in the photo.

“We knew he’d be bigger, but we didn’t expect this,” said Terrica in a statement, according to NYP.

Her baby weighed a whopping 5.9 kilograms (13 pounds) at birth, making him the largest tot ever born at the hospital, NYP reports.