Abstract
BackgroundThis study identified lifestyle patterns by examining the clustering of eating routines (e.g. eating together as a family, having the television on during meals, duration of meals) and various activity-related behaviors (i.e. physical activity (PA) and sedentary screen-based behavior) in 5-year-old children, as well as the longitudinal association of these patterns with weight status (BMI and overweight) development up to age 8.MethodsData originated from the KOALA Birth Cohort Study (N = 2074 at age 5). Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify lifestyle patterns. Backward regression analyses were used to examine the association of lifestyle patterns with parent and child background characteristics, as well as the longitudinal associations between the patterns and weight status development.ResultsFour lifestyle patterns emerged from the PCA: a ‘Television–Snacking’ pattern, a ‘Sports–Computer’ pattern, a ‘Traditional Family’ pattern, and a “Fast’ Food’ pattern. Child gender and parental educational level, working hours and body mass index were significantly associated with the scores for the patterns. The Television–Snacking pattern was positively associated with BMI (standardized regression coefficient β = 0.05; p < 0.05), and children with this pattern showed a positive tendency toward being overweight at age 8 (Odds ratio (OR) = 1.27, p = 0.06). In addition, the Sports–Computer pattern was significantly positively associated with an increased risk of becoming overweight at age 7 (OR = 1.28, p < 0.05).ConclusionsThe current study showed the added value of including eating routines in cross-behavioral clustering analyses. The findings indicate that future interventions to prevent childhood overweight should address eating routines and activity/inactivity simultaneously, using the synergy between clustered behaviors (e.g. between television viewing and snacking).
Highlights
This study identified lifestyle patterns by examining the clustering of eating routines and various activity-related behaviors (i.e. physical activity (PA) and sedentary screen-based behavior) in 5-year-old children, as well as the longitudinal association of these patterns with weight status (BMI and overweight) development up to age 8
Identifying the clustering of behavioral patterns in young children is important, since dietary and physical activity (PA) habits are formed in the early life stages and track into later life [12,13], even into adulthood [14,15], so adult lifestyle is often already established during childhood
The current study revealed an increased overweight risk at age 6–7 for children with high scores for this pattern, which could indicate that the Sports–Computer pattern may be problematic in young children
Summary
This study identified lifestyle patterns by examining the clustering of eating routines (e.g. eating together as a family, having the television on during meals, duration of meals) and various activity-related behaviors (i.e. physical activity (PA) and sedentary screen-based behavior) in 5-year-old children, as well as the longitudinal association of these patterns with weight status (BMI and overweight) development up to age 8. Examples of patterns that have often been reported are a ‘sedentary–snacking’ pattern, in which intake of unhealthy food items clusters with sedentary screen-based behavior (i.e. television and computer use [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9]); and an ‘all-round-healthy’ pattern of healthy food intake and high levels of PA [2,3,4,5,7,8] and/or low levels of screen-based behavior [3,7] All these studies used measures of dietary intake in their clustering analyses, i.e. focused on what was eaten by the children. Examining the clustering of such eating routines would provide information regarding the context in which the clustered energy balance-related behaviors occur
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