HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 89/2/551    most recent ajcn.2008.26759v1 Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Li, L. Articles by Power, C. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Li, L. Articles by Power, C. Agricola Articles by Li, L. Articles by Power, C.

Intergenerational influences on childhood body mass index: the effect of parental body mass index trajectories

¹ From the Center for Pediatric Epidemiology & Biostatistics, UCL Institute of Child Health, London, United Kingdom.

² The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Department of Health. Information about the wider program of the Public Health Research Consortium is available from www.york.ac.uk/phrc.

³ The study was undertaken by the Institute of Child Health as part of the Public Health Research Consortium, which was supported by the Department of Health Policy Research Programme. The GOSH/UCL Institute of Child Health was supported in part by the Department of Health's NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. The Centre for Paediatric Epidemiology and Biostatistics was supported in part by the Medical Research Council in its capacity as the MRC Centre of Epidemiology for Child Health.

⁴ Address reprint requests and correspondence to L Li, CPEB, UCL Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, United Kingdom. E-mail: l.li{at}ich.ucl.ac.uk.

Background: Parental obesity in adulthood is a strong determinant of offspring obesity. Whether parental body mass index (BMI; in kg/m²) at earlier life stages is associated with offspring BMI is unknown.

Objective: The main objective was to assess whether recent BMI of parents in adulthood and their recent BMI gain are more strongly associated with offspring BMI than are BMI or changes in parental BMI in childhood.

Design: Two generations in the 1958 British birth cohort were studied, including cohort members (parents' generation) with BMI at 7, 11, 16, 23, and 33 y (n = 16,794) and a one-third sample of their offspring selected in 1991 aged 4–18 y (n = 2908). We applied multilevel models to allow for within-family correlations.

Results: Childhood BMI increased on average by 0.25–1.10 between the 2 generations, depending on sex and age group, and overweight/obesity increased from 10% to 16%. Parents' BMI in childhood and adulthood independently influenced offspring BMI, but no significant difference in the strength of influence was observed. For example, adjusted increase in BMI for offspring aged 4–8 y was equivalent to 0.37 and 0.23 for a 1-SD increase in maternal BMI at 7 and 33 y, respectively. Similar patterns were observed for risk of overweight/obesity and for paternal BMI at most ages.

Conclusions: Excessive BMI gains of parents during childhood and adulthood were associated with a higher BMI and risk of obesity in the offspring. Reductions in the incidence of child obesity in the current population may reduce obesity in future generations.