Apr 29, 2014 06:03 AM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Young girls who are called 'fat' have more chances of becoming obese by their late teens, a new study by the University of California Los Angeles shows.

The research team analyzed data of 1,213 African-American girls and 1,166 white girls living in Northern California, Cincinnati and Washington D.C. The team noted down their height and weight during the start of the study. This was repeated after 9 years. Researchers stated that 58 percent of the girls were labeled 'too fat' at the age of 10.

The study results showed that these girls had 1.66 times chances of becoming obese by the age of 19. "Simply being labeled as too fat has a measurable effect almost a decade later. We nearly fell off our chairs when we discovered this," lead researcher A Janet Tomiyama said in a press release."Even after we statistically removed the effects of their actual weight, their income, their race and when they reached puberty, the effect remained," she said.

The findings also showed that more the number of people called the girls 'fat' higher the chances of these girls becoming obese later.

Jeffrey Hunger, co-author of the study, explained that being labelled as too fat was creating an additional likelihood of being obese. "Being labelled as too fat may lead people to worry about personally experiencing the stigma and discrimination faced by overweight individuals, and recent research suggests that experiencing or anticipating weight stigma increases stress and can lead to overeating," said Hunger, a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara.

In a previous meta-analysis the team found that people were able to lose up to 10 percent of their body weight by going on a diet. However, only few were successful in sustaining the weight loss and most regained the weight.

Eating right is the ideal mantra rather than quick fixes like going on fad diets which never work. Our genes have a role to play in our weight, says the research team. "The genetic power over weight is about the same as the power of genes over your height," Tomiyama said. "People who say it's your fault if you're fat underappreciate the role of genes."

So holding people responsible for their obesity and stigmatizing them does not help as calling people fat drives them  to eat more rather than less.

The current study was published in the journal 'JAMA Pediatrics.'

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