Examination of the effect of overall diet quality on chronologic age and body weight status at the onset of puberty

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There is lack of information on the relevance of diet quality during childhood for the chronologic age of the onset of puberty and body weight status (BMI) at that time. We examined if overall diet quality of healthy children (n=244) two years prior to the pubertal growth spurt (age at take off (ATO), baseline) was associated with age or BMI z‐score at the onset of puberty using multivariate regression analysis in the Dortmund Nutritional and Anthropometric Longitudinally Designed Study (DONALD). Diet quality was determined using the nutrient‐density‐based Nutritional Quality Index (NQI) and the Revised Children's Diet Quality Index (RC‐DQI) at baseline. Children with higher NQI scores (better diet quality) at baseline were 0.37 years older at ATO than children with lower diet quality. ATO by tertiles of NQI were 9.26 years (95% CI 9.06, 9.47), 9.48 (9.30, 9.65), and 9.63 (9.43, 9.83), adjusted for sex, total energy, and baseline BMI (p‐value 0.04). However, children with higher NQI also had higher BMI values at ATO (p‐value 0.01). This association was lost after correcting for baseline BMI. RC‐DQI scores were not significantly associated with age or BMI at ATO. Results of this study indicate that children with better diet quality as indicated by total nutrient‐density intake levels enter puberty later and that this relationship is independent of body weight status two years prior to ATO.