Kids and Cholesterol

You're never too young for high cholesterol. In fact, as many as one-third of American children (from age 2 through the teenage years) have high cholesterol.

It's no surprise. Consider what constitutes kid food in this country: chicken nuggets, boxed macaroni and cheese, and high-fat luncheon meats. School lunches aren't much better. A national survey conducted in 2001 found that 3 of 12 school districts either didn't meet or didn't know if they met USDA nutrition guidelines.

With one in five children overweight and an epidemic in progress of type 2 diabetes among kids, the need to track heart disease risk in children has never been greater, particularly given the mounting evidence that the precursors of heart disease begin in childhood. In the summer of 2002 an American Heart Association committee began recommending that doctors start measuring children's blood pressure at age 3 and blood cholesterol at age 5. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends cholesterol tests for children age 2 or older if their parents or grandparents had heart disease or vascular disease before age 55, or if their parents have cholesterol levels of 240 or higher.