Abstract
Background: The complex impact of environmental and social factors on preschool children being overweight/obese is unclear. We examined the associations between the levels of green space exposure and the risk of being overweight/obese for 4–6 year-old children and assessed the impact of maternal education on these associations. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 1489 mother-child pairs living in Kaunas, Lithuania, in 2012–2013. We assessed children overweight/obesity by standardized questionnaires using international body mass index cut-off points, and the level of greenness exposures by satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of each child’s home and by the distance to a nearest city park. The maternal education was used as the SES indicator. We used logistic regression models to investigate the strength of the associations. Results: Children from families with poorer maternal education, pathological mother-child relations and smoking mothers, and living in areas with less greenness exposure (NDVI-100 m), had significantly higher odds ratios of being overweight/obese. Lower maternal education and distance to a city park modified the effect of greenness cover level exposure on the risk of children being overweight/obese. Conclusions: Higher greenness exposure in the residential settings has beneficial effects on children’s physical development. The green spaces exposures for psychosocial stress management is recommended as a measure to prevent overweight/obesity among children.
Highlights
The increasing prevalence of being overweight/obese among children is a growing concern worldwide
To study the combined effects of greenness exposure and maternal education level, we simultaneously evaluated the risks associated with lower education, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)-100 m and overweight/obesity among 4–6 year-old children
* p-value < 0.05. † Adjusted for: family status, maternal age at childbirth, maternal smoking during pregnancy, secondhand smoking, employment status, mother-child relations, the child’s sex, birth order, birth weight, and sedentary behavior. The results of this epidemiological study strengthen the evidence of the impact of residential quantified green space exposure and social behavioral factors influencing of the risk of being overweight/obese in 4–6 year-old children
Summary
The increasing prevalence of being overweight/obese among children is a growing concern worldwide. The complex impact of environmental and social factors on preschool children being overweight/obese is unclear. We examined the associations between the levels of green space exposure and the risk of being overweight/obese for 4–6 year-old children and assessed the impact of maternal education on these associations. We assessed children overweight/obesity by standardized questionnaires using international body mass index cut-off points, and the level of greenness exposures by satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of each child’s home and by the distance to a nearest city park. Results: Children from families with poorer maternal education, pathological mother-child relations and smoking mothers, and living in areas with less greenness exposure (NDVI-100 m), had significantly higher odds ratios of being overweight/obese
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