Early Life Course Risk Factors for Childhood Obesity: the IDEFICS Case-control Study

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2014 Feb 20

PMID 24551043

Citations 35

Authors

Karin Bammann

Jenny Peplies

Stefaan de Henauw

Monica Hunsberger

Denes Molnar

Luis A Moreno

Michael Tornaritis

Toomas Veidebaum

Wolfgang Ahrens

Alfonso Siani

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: The early life course is assumed to be a critical phase for childhood obesity; however the significance of single factors and their interplay is not well studied in childhood populations.

Objectives: The investigation of pre-, peri- and postpartum risk factors on the risk of obesity at age 2 to 9.

Methods: A case-control study with 1,024 1:1-matched case-control pairs was nested in the baseline survey (09/2007-05/2008) of the IDEFICS study, a population-based intervention study on childhood obesity carried out in 8 European countries in pre- and primary school settings. Conditional logistic regression was used for identification of risk factors.

Results: For many of the investigated risk factors, we found a raw effect in our study. In multivariate models, we could establish an effect for gestational weight gain (adjusted OR = 1.02; 95%CI 1.00-1.04), smoking during pregnancy (adjusted OR = 1.48; 95%CI 1.08-2.01), Caesarian section (adjusted OR = 1.38; 95%CI 1.10-1.74), and breastfeeding 4 to 11 months (adjusted OR = 0.77; 95%CI 0.62-0.96). Birth weight was related to lean mass rather than to fat mass, the effect of smoking was found only in boys, but not in girls. After additional adjustment for parental BMI and parental educational status, only gestational weight gain remained statistically significant. Both, maternal as well as paternal BMI were the strongest risk factors in our study, and they confounded several of the investigated associations.

Conclusions: Key risk factors of childhood obesity in our study are parental BMI and gestational weight gain; consequently prevention approaches should target not only children but also adults. The monitoring of gestational weight seems to be of particular importance for early prevention of childhood obesity.

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