Researchers say there’s a new way to tell if infants are likely to become obese later on: Check to see if they’ve passed two key milestones on doctors’ growth charts by age 2.

Babies who grew that quickly face double the risk of being obese at age 5, compared with peers who grew more slowly, their study found. Rapid growers were also more likely to be obese at age 10, and infants whose chart numbers climbed that much during their first 6 months faced the greatest risks.

That kind of rapid growth should be a red flag to doctors, and a sign to parents that babies might be overfed or spending too much time in strollers and not enough crawling around, said pediatrician Dr. Elsie Taveras, the study’s lead author and an obesity researcher at Harvard Medical School.

Contrary to the idea that chubby babies are the picture of health, the study bolsters evidence that “bigger is not better” in infants, she said.

But skeptics say not so fast. Babies often grow in spurts and flagging the speediest growers could lead to putting infants on diets — a bad idea that could backfire in the long run, said Dr. Michelle Lampl, director of Emory University’s Center for the Study of Human Health.

Babies on obesity path? New sign may offer answer – BusinessWeek

Rapper and actor Heavy D, who played an influential role in shaping rap music in the late 80s and early 90s with a fusion of New Jack Swing and reggae, has died. He was 44.

Heavy D, who was born Dwight Arrington Myers, died Tuesday in the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after collapsing on the walkway outside his Beverly Hills home, according to law enforcement sources. The Los Angeles County coroners office is investigating the cause of death.

Myers, who was 6 feet 3 and weighed more than 300 pounds at one point, anointed himself the “Overweight Lover,” but he had slimmed down in recent years.

Heavy D obituary: Singer who shaped rap in the 80s dies at 44 – latimes.com