Fat chance: Study shows obese children more disease prone

By the time a child is six his immune system has been compromised by obesity.

NEW findings from the National Children’s Research Centre show that obese children lose key cells in their immune system — and that disease development is underway at age six.

One of the most important immune cells — the invariant, natural killer T cell — is much reduced in number, and much less effective at its job, in obese children.