LONDON –Children’s risk factor for being obese is greatly related to status of parents’ weight, especially the mother’s, according to a new study from the Health Behaviour Research Centre Department of Epidemiology at the Public Health University College London (Am J Clin Nutr. April 7, 2010). Researchers noted previous research showed childhood obesity to be more strongly associated with maternal weight than with paternal weight, but wanted to explore this further due the lack of objectively measured data from both parents in those studies.
Data were pooled from the annual Health Surveys for England carried out between 2001 and 2006. Families with two children aged 2 to 15 years with physical information available for both parents and children were included (n=4,432 families, n=7,078 children). Weights and heights were measured by a trained nurse.
The researchers found having two overweight parents was associated with an increased risk of child obesity (P<0.001) compared with having two normal-weight parents. Having two obese (including severely obese) parents was associated with a higher risk of child obesity (P<0.01), and having two severely obese parents was associated with an even higher risk of child obesity (P<0.01) independent of age, sex, socioeconomic status and ethnicity
Mother-child associations for body mass index (BMI) were significantly stronger than father-child association, even after adjustment for plausible levels of undisclosed nonpaternity. Associations were the same for sons and daughters, but increased with age. The researchers concluded parental obesity could be used to target preventive interventions in the preschool years to avoid serious adverse effects on the future health of children.
