Abstract
Obesity is considered the second most common health problem in pet cats in developed countries. This study used prospective data from a longitudinal study of pet cats (‘C.L.A.W.S.’, www.bristol.ac.uk/vetscience/claws) to identify early-life risk factors for feline overweight/obesity occurring at around two years of age. Data were collected via five owner-completed questionnaires (for cats aged two–six months, six months, 12 months, 18 months and two years respectively) completed between May 2011 and April 2015. Owner-reported body condition scores (BCS) of cats at age two years, assessed using images from the 9-point BCS system (Laflamme, 1997), were categorised into a dichotomous variable: overweight/obese (BCS 6–9) and not overweight (BCS 1–5) and used as the dependent variable. Of the 375 cats with owner-reported BCS, 25.3% were overweight or obese at two years of age. Multivariable logistic regression models were built using stepwise forward-selection. To account for potential hierarchical clustering due to multi-cat households two-level random intercept models were considered but clustering had no impact on the analysis. Models were compared using Wald tests. Six factors were significantly associated with overweight/obesity at two years of age: being overweight or obese at one year of age (OR=10.6, 95%CI 4.4–25.3); owner belief that BCS 7 was the ideal weight (OR=33.2, 95%CI 8.5–129.4), or that BCS represented overweight cats but they would not be concerned if their cat were classified in this category (OR=2.7, 95%CI 1.2–6.2), at questionnaire five completion; vets advising owners that the cat should lose weight, or making no comment on their weight, between one and two years of age (OR=12.1, 95%CI 3.2–44.9 and OR=3.9, 95%CI 1.5–10.3 respectively); owners giving their cat treats when they “felt happy” with them at 18 months of age (OR=2.7, 95%CI 1.0 − 7.3); feeding ≥250g wet food daily between two and six months of age (OR=2.7, 95%CI 1.2–5.9), and feeding dry food as the only or major part (>50%) of the diet at two years of age (OR=2.1, 95%CI 1.0–4.2). These findings have the potential to reduce the current high prevalence of a widespread problem by informing preventive advice, and as such improving the health and welfare of pet cats.
Highlights
Feline obesity has become an extremely prevalent problem for pet cats, and has been identified as the second most common health problem in domestic cats in developed countries studied to date (Cave et al, 2012)
This was in order to investigate risk factors for feline obesity which could be modified by owners in order to reduce the risk of obesity developing. They had not been retained in the analysis model up to this point, two variables which had been found to be significantly associated with feline obesity in a previous study by the authors (Rowe et al, 2015) were added to the final stage of the model building process, in order to confirm whether or not they were still associated with the outcome
This work has found that within this cohort a quarter (25.3%) of cats were overweight or obese at approximately two years of age according to their owners, and over a third (36.8%)
Summary
Feline obesity has become an extremely prevalent problem for pet cats, and has been identified as the second most common health problem (after dental disease) in domestic cats in developed countries studied to date (Cave et al, 2012). Evidence from previous studies indicates that the prevalence of overweight and obesity is already high by an early age (Kronfeld, Donoghue, & Glickman, 1994; Lund et al., 2005; Scarlett et al, 1994). This suggests that the factors which significantly increase a cat’s risk of obesity occur early on in life, before adulthood is reached, which is supported by the human literature on the importance of the early-life environment in the development of childhood obesity an early-life critical period for the development of childhood obesity (eg, Reilly et al, 2005). Studies utilising prospective data are needed in order to provide evidence for a predictive relationship between putative risk factors and obesity, if successful preventive strategies are to be developed
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