Association between parental and offspring BMI: results from EPACI Portugal 2012

Autores da FMUP

• Milton Severo Barros Da Silva

  Autor

• Carla Maria De Moura Lopes

  Autor

Participantes de fora da FMUP

• Nazareth, M
• Pinto, E
• Rêgo, C

Unidades de investigação

• Ciências da Saúde Pública e Forenses, e Educação Médica

Abstract

Objective: To assess the longitudinal association between parental BMI and offspring's BMI, in EPACI Portugal 2012. Design: Longitudinal study with retrospective collection of children's anthropometry data since birth. Children's anthropometric data were gathered from individual child health bulletins, and parents' anthropometrics were self-reported. Children's and parents' BMI were classified according to WHO cut-offs. Linear mixed models with random intercept and slope for age were applied to quantify the association between parental BMI and children BMI Z-score (zBMI). Setting: EPACI Portugal 2012. Participants: Representative sample from the Portuguese population (n 2230) aged from 12 to 36 months. Results: 58.9 % of the fathers and 35.6 % of the mothers were overweight (OW) or obese. Prevalence of infants who were, at least, at risk ofOWincreased from 17.0 % to 30.3 % since birth to 12 months. About half of the mothers with pre-pregnancy OW and obesity (OB) gained gestational weight above the recommendations. The children from mothers with gestational weight gain (GWG) below the recommendations showed a -0.15 SD lower zBMI (95 % CI -0.23, -0.06) in early life, comparing with mothers within GWG recommendations. Children of obese mothers were more likely to present a higher zBMI (0.24 SD, 95 % CI 0.13, 0.35) throughout the first months of life. Conclusions: A high prevalence ofOWand OB was observed in Portuguese young adults and toddlers. Mothers' pre-pregnancy BMI and insufficient GWG had a direct effect on offspring BMI. Early effective interventions are needed in order to prevent the transgenerational transmission of OB.

Keywords

• Parents; Offspring; Body mass index; Obesity