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Obese children are more likely to be hit by cars, scientists have found (stock photo)

Obese children are more likely to be hit by cars, scientists have found.

But this is not because they provide a bigger target, or that they cannot get out of the way fast enough, or a result of them being too slow at crossing the road.

It seems that children with higher body mass indexes are more impatient and impulsive than their slimmer peers.

Researchers found that obese children waited for a shorter period before crossing, and allowed less time and distance between themselves and approaching traffic.

They were also involved in more colllisions in experimental simulations of crossing the road, according to a paper published in the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention.

Elizabeth O’Neal, lead author of the study and a graduate student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa, said extra weight influences how obese children choose to cross the street.

She said more research is needed on obesity as a risk factor for childhood pedestrian injury.

‘We tend to think of obesity as being detrimental to health, but we don’t necessarily think of it affecting our health in the way we behave,’ she added.

‘Being overweight is putting increased stress on their joints, which is a little uncomfortable. So they are compromising their safety in order to expedite the crossing.’

Obesity in children has also been associated with deficits in areas that require planning, organisation, memory, time management and flexible thinking.

The risk of pedestrian injury represents a new avenue in childhood obesity research, the researcher said.

‘As an area of study, it is not very well developed. This is sort of the beginning. We think there is a lot to be done both epidemiologically and behaviourally to see what is going on,’ she added.

 

 

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Researchers found that obese children waited for a shorter period before crossing, and allowed less time and distance between themselves and approaching traffic

Previous research has found that age is another risk factor, with children aged between six and eight being more than one-and-a-half times likely to die in a car crash than children aged nine to 11.

And boys experience almost twice as many pedestrian injuries as girls.

The new study involved 206 children between the ages of seven and eight from Birmingham, Alabama.

The children crossed a road in a virtual environment that simulated a road crossing near a school in the local area.

Wearing head-tracking gear, the youngsters stood on a wooden curb and watched traffic displayed on three side-by-side 24-inch monitors.

When the children felt it was safe to cross, they stepped down onto a trigger plate that launched an avatar that crossed the simulated roadway.

The avatar was programmed to move at each child’s typical walking speed, based on multiple trials taken before the experiment.

The children completed 30 road crossings that were randomly presented at three levels of difficulty: 25 mph and light volume, 30 mph and medium volume, and 35 mph and high volume.

Next the children were assessed on their ability to select the safest pedestrian route.

Four written prompts asked the children to make road-crossing choices based on a goal, such as catching a dog that escaped the house or making it home in time for dinner.

They also used a tabletop model that represented two road scenarios: the intersection of a four-lane road and two-way road in a city, and a T-shaped intersection between a major and minor street in a residential setting.

In addition to their findings about overweight and obese children, the researchers found that girls were more cautious than boys when crossing the virtual roadway.

And when it came to determining what type of route the children would select when crossing a roadway, race emerged as the strongest predictor, with African American children selecting riskier routes for crossing.

Researchers speculated that because most of the African American children in the study lived in urban neighbourhoods where they generally had more exposure to traffic, they may have had more experience crossing streets