Excess early postnatal weight gain leads to increased abdominal fat in young children.

Annemieke M V Evelein,Frank L J Visseren,Diederick E Grobbee,Cornelis K Van Der Ent,Cuno S P M Uiterwaal

doi:10.1155/2012/141656

Annemieke M V Evelein, Frank L J Visseren + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/141656

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Abstract

Background. Increased childhood weight gain has been associated with later adiposity. Whether excess early postnatal weight gain plays a role in childhood abdominal fat is unknown. Design. In the ongoing Wheezing Illnesses Study Leidsche Rijn (WHISTLER), birth cohort weight and length from birth to age 3 months were obtained. In the first 316 five-year-olds, intra-abdominal and subcutaneous fat were measured ultrasonographically. Individual weight and length gain rates were assessed in each child. Internal Z-scores of weight for length gain (WLG) were calculated. Multiple imputation was used to deal with missing covariates. Results. Per-1-unit increase in Z-score WLG from birth to 3 months, BMI, waist circumference, and subcutaneous fat were significantly higher; 0.51 kg/m2, 0.84 cm, and 0.50 mm, respectively. After multiple imputation, a trend towards significance was observed for intra-abdominal fat as well (0.51 mm/SD). In the associations with 5-year adiposity, no interaction between postnatal Z-score WLG and birth size was found. Conclusion. Excess early postnatal weight gain is associated with increased general and central adiposity, characterized by more subcutaneous and likely more intra-abdominal fat at 5 years of age.

Highlights

Obesity is one of the major cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and is a common health problem both in adults and in children [1]
No differences in infant feeding type and parental characteristics were determined across growth tertiles, except for parental smoking habits and maternal gestational diabetes: parents of children with lower weight for length gain (WLG) smoked more often in the 5 years after birth and all three infants of the mothers who have had gestational diabetes belonged to the highest Z-score WLG tertile
After correcting for confounders, size at birth was positively associated with BMI and waist circumference, but not with intra-abdominal and subcutaneous fat

Summary

Introduction

Obesity is one of the major cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and is a common health problem both in adults and in children [1]. Several studies determined an association between weight gain in the first 2-3 years of life and central adiposity, mostly assessed by larger waist circumference, in both adulthood [7] and early childhood [8,9,10,11,12,13] Imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging [7], ultrasonography [10, 11], or computed tomography have seldom or never been used to assess the association between postnatal growth and later central adiposity. Excess early postnatal weight gain is associated with increased general and central adiposity, characterized by more subcutaneous and likely more intra-abdominal fat at 5 years of age

Methods

Results

Conclusion