Kindergarten-age children who are overweight will most likely be obese when they reach middle school, according to a new study.

Researchers from Emory University's School of Public Health found that kids who were heavier than average at five years old were four times more likely to become obese by 14, according to a report by Mother Nature.

When compared to children of normal weight, almost half of the kids who eventually became obese between kindergarten and eighth grade were overweight at five years old.

"Something is getting set in those first five years of life which seems to carry forward," lead researcher of the study Dr. Venkat Narayan, professor of epidemiology and medicine at Emory University, told Mother Nature.

The study, which was published in the Jan. 30 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, analyzed figures from more than 7,700 children in the US who started kindergarten in 1998. Researchers followed the kids until they reached eighth grade, logging their progress along the way.

About 12 percent of the children between five and 14 years old became obese. Nearly 32 percent of kids who were overweight in kindergarten were obese by the time they turned 14. Compare that to the eight percent of children who started out at a normal weight in kindergarten.

Narayan also added that these beginnings set the tone for obesity in adulthood. Although the study didn't given a definitive cause for the link between childhood and teenage obesity, authors wagered it concerned physical activity habits, eating patterns, or the mother's diet while pregnant.

 "We need to promote the idea of health weight during the first five years of life," Narayan said.