Zhang T, et al. - In view of the predictive value of childhood body mass index (BMI) for adult obesity, researchers sought to characterize BMI growth trajectories from childhood to midlife and assessed how BMI growth rates at specific childhood age points correlate to adult obesity risk. In this longitudinal study, they included 2,732 participants with repeated BMI measurements from childhood (4-19 years) to adulthood (20-51 years). Observations revealed different associations of rates of change in BMI at different childhood ages with adult obesity. They identified that for the development of obesity in later life, puberty and postpuberty vs early childhood are critical periods. Age 14 seems to be the time of peak influence.