A recent study completed by the University of Montreal and published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine suggests that it may be possible to predict obesity as early as 3.5 years of age.   Laura Pryor, a PhD candidate, and her team analyzed data drawn from the Quebec Longitudinal study of child development which ran from 1998 to 2006.   1,957 children’s height and weights were analyzed from 5 months to 8 years of age.   In addition to weight and height, BMI’s (body mass index) were configured and analyzed and differentiated into three trajectory groups: children with low but stable BMI, children with moderate BMI, and high- rising BMI (elevated BMI that was rising). An interesting summary from this study was that the research team noticed that all three trajectory groups were similar until about 2.5 years of age.   The BMI’s of the high-rising trajectory group increased significantly at 2.5 years of age and by middle school 50% of these children w...