Weight Excess in Developmental Age: Socio-Economic Burden and Health Implications

Childhood overweight and obesity are escalating global health challenges with conse-quences that extend across the life course. This narrative review examines the epide-miology, clinical complications, socioeconomic burden, and management of excess weight in children and adolescents across diverse socioeconomic settings. Evidence was identified through searches of MEDLINE (via PubMed), Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, and the Cochrane Library, supplemented by manual screening of reference lists. The literature indicates that excess adiposity, particularly visceral fat, promotes insulin resistance, hypertension, dyslipidemia, hepatic steatosis, and other early mani-festations of cardiometabolic disease, while also contributing to respiratory, orthope-dic, and psychosocial complications. These risks frequently persist into adulthood, in-creasing premature morbidity, mortality, healthcare utilization, and direct and indi-rect societal costs. The burden is unevenly distributed: poverty, stigma, discrimination, food and built environments, and limited access to preventive and clinical services shape both obesity risk and outcomes, with particularly severe consequences in re-source-constrained settings. Early identification of excess weight and associated risk factors, systematic screening for comorbidities, and timely, family-centered multidis-ciplinary care are therefore essential. Effective prevention and treatment must also address the broader social and commercial determinants of health through coordinat-ed action across healthcare, education, food systems, and public policy.