Abstract
BackgroundThere is little evidence regarding risk factors for child obesity in Asian populations, including the role of parental anthropometric and cardiometabolic risk factors. We examined the relation between parental risk factors and child obesity in a Malaysian population.MethodsWe used data from health and demographic surveillance conducted by the South East Asia Community Observatory in Segamat, Malaysia. Analyses included 9207 individuals (4806 children, 2570 mothers and 1831 fathers). Child obesity was defined based on the World Health Organization 2007 reference. We assessed the relation between parental anthropometric (overweight, obesity and central obesity) and cardiometabolic (systolic hypertension, diastolic hypertension and hyperglycaemia) risk factors and child obesity, using mixed effects Poisson regression models with robust standard errors.ResultsWe found a high burden of overweight and obesity among children in this population (30% overweight or obese). Children of one or more obese parents had a 2-fold greater risk of being obese compared with children of non-obese parents. Sequential adjustment for parental and child characteristics did not materially affect estimates (fully adjusted relative risk for obesity in both parents: 2.39, 95% confidence interval: 1.82, 3.10, P < 0.001; P for trend < 0.001). These associations were not modified by parental or child sex. We found no consistent evidence for associations between parental cardiometabolic risk factors and child obesity.ConclusionsParental obesity was strongly associated with child obesity in this population. Further exploration of the behavioural and environmental drivers of these associations may help inform strategies addressing child obesity in Asia.
Highlights
The increasing global prevalence of child obesity is a public health issue of growing concern.[1]
A total of 9207 individuals who had information on current biophysical and socio-demographic measures of interest were included in this study (4806 children, 2570 unique mothers and 1831 unique fathers)
Children covered by the health survey but not included in these analyses were similar to those who were included, and adults were comparable in terms of risk factors
Summary
The increasing global prevalence of child obesity is a public health issue of growing concern.[1]. A notable part of child obesity research has been focused on investigating intergenerational associations of body mass index (BMI), generally in European or North American populations.[7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29] Findings reported in such studies have been inconsistent, regarding the modifying effect of parental or child sex.[7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29] Few studies have examined the relation between other cardiometabolic risk factors in parents and child obesity This is an important issue to clarify given the interlinked nature of both anthropometric and cardiometabolic risk measures.[30,31,32].
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