ABSTRACT
The different ways in which obesity is viewed at various stages during the growing years is an interesting phenomenon. For example, many people commonly view a degree of fatness in young children as acceptable. In many cultures fatness is desirable and a sign of healthiness. Such an attitude may stem from the long-held belief that a degree of fatness helps, due to increased energy reserves, to guarantee an enhanced survival rate through greater resistance to disease, most commonly respiratory and gastrointestinal infections. In previous centuries, little angels in the paintings of the great masters were always presented as chubby rather than thin. Such images of young children were commonplace and presented the ideal of a small child.
