Title: Influence of post-partum BMI change on childhood obesity and energy intake.

Authors: Téllez-Rojo, Martha M; Trejo-Valdivia, Belem; Roberts, Elizabeth; Muñoz-Rocha, Teresa Verenice; Bautista-Arredondo, Luis F; Peterson, Karen E; Cantoral, Alejandra

Published In PLoS One, (2019)

Abstract: Association between parent's Body Mass Index (BMI) and their children, has been widely documented. Individual, familiar and structural factors play a role in this relation. We analyzed the association between maternal BMI change during the first year post-partum and their offspring's growth-trajectories and energy intake in their first five years of life.Compare growth-trajectories and children's caloric intake according to post-partum mother´s BMI classification.The anthropometric assessment was taken in 935 mother-child pairs along the study period. Mothers were classified into four groups according to their BMI-trajectories in the post-partum. Children's weight for height z-scores (WHZ) was compared among groups using random-effects regression models. A longitudinal comparison of children's caloric intake by the maternal group was carried out.At 42 months of age, infants from mothers that remained overweight during the first year post-partum had, on average, 0.61 SD higher WHZ than those from mothers who remained in a recommended BMI group (R-BMI) in the same period. At 60 months of age, children´s prevalence of obesity was almost twice in the maternal overweight group vs R-BMI group (14.2% and 7.3% respectively). Chances for a child of having an over caloric intake were 36.5% (95% IC: 6.6%, 74.8%) and significantly higher among children from overweight mothers than those from R-BMI mothers. The difference in children's WHZ trajectory remained significant after adjusting for caloric intake, suggesting that contextual factors play a role in shaping children's obesity. A concurrent ethnographic study with the study subjects provides suggestions as to what these factors might be, including changes in the food landscape.Children from overweight mothers tended to have a more caloric diet yielding a higher propensity to obesity. Contextual factors such as food landscape might contribute to childhood obesity beyond having an overweight mother. Pregnancy and post-partum is a window of opportunity for interventions to decrease the incidence of children's overweight.

PubMed ID: 31830761

MeSH Terms: Adolescent; Adult; Body Mass Index*; Body Weight; Child Development*; Child, Preschool; Energy Intake*; Female; Humans; Infant; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Mothers/psychology*; Overweight/physiopathology*; Pediatric Obesity/epidemiology*; Postpartum Period*; Pregnancy; Young Adult