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Diet quality across early childhood and adiposity at 6 years: the Southampton Women’s Survey

Diet quality across early childhood and adiposity at 6 years: the Southampton Women’s Survey
Diet quality across early childhood and adiposity at 6 years: the Southampton Women’s Survey
Background:
Poor diet quality in early childhood is inconsistently linked to obesity risk. Understanding may be limited by the use of cross-sectional data and the use of body mass index (BMI) to define adiposity in childhood.

Objective:
The objective of this study is to examine the effects of continued exposure to diets of varying quality across early childhood in relation to adiposity at 6 years.

Methods:
One thousand and eighteen children from a prospective UK birth cohort were studied. Diet was assessed using food frequency questionnaires when the children were aged 6 and 12 months, and 3 and 6 years; diet quality was determined according to scores for a principal component analysis-defined dietary pattern at each age (characterized by frequent consumption of fruits, vegetables and fish). At each age, children were allocated a value of 0/1/2 according to third of the distribution (bottom/middle/top) their diet quality score was in; values were summed to calculate an overall diet quality index (DQI) for early childhood (range 0–8). Obesity outcomes considered at 6 years were dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry-assessed fat mass and BMI.

Results:
One hundred and seven (11%) children had a DQI=0, indicating a consistently low diet quality, 339 (33%) had a DQI=1–3, 378 (37%) had a DQI=4–6 and 194 (19%) had a DQI=7–8. There was a strong association between lower DQI and higher fat mass z-score at 6 years that was robust to adjustment for confounders (fat mass s.d. per 1-unit DQI increase: β=−0.05 (95% confidence interval (CI): −0.09, −0.01), P=0.01). In comparison with children who had the highest diet quality (DQI=7–8), this amounted to a difference in fat mass of 14% (95% CI: 2%, 28%) at 6 years for children with the poorest diets (DQI=0). In contrast, no independent associations were observed between DQI and BMI.
0307-0565
1456–1462
Okubo, H.
312209e4-0d07-4722-b86c-2d7bd211377f
Crozier, Sarah
9c3595ce-45b0-44fa-8c4c-4c555e628a03
Harvey, N.C.
ce487fb4-d360-4aac-9d17-9466d6cba145
Godfrey, K.M.
0931701e-fe2c-44b5-8f0d-ec5c7477a6fd
Inskip, H.M.
5fb4470a-9379-49b2-a533-9da8e61058b7
Cooper, C.
e05f5612-b493-4273-9b71-9e0ce32bdad6
Robinson, S.M.
ba591c98-4380-456a-be8a-c452f992b69b
Okubo, H.
312209e4-0d07-4722-b86c-2d7bd211377f
Crozier, Sarah
9c3595ce-45b0-44fa-8c4c-4c555e628a03
Harvey, N.C.
ce487fb4-d360-4aac-9d17-9466d6cba145
Godfrey, K.M.
0931701e-fe2c-44b5-8f0d-ec5c7477a6fd
Inskip, H.M.
5fb4470a-9379-49b2-a533-9da8e61058b7
Cooper, C.
e05f5612-b493-4273-9b71-9e0ce32bdad6
Robinson, S.M.
ba591c98-4380-456a-be8a-c452f992b69b

Okubo, H., Crozier, Sarah, Harvey, N.C., Godfrey, K.M., Inskip, H.M., Cooper, C. and Robinson, S.M. (2015) Diet quality across early childhood and adiposity at 6 years: the Southampton Women’s Survey. International Journal of Obesity, 39 (10), 1456–1462. (doi:10.1038/ijo.2015.97).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Background:
Poor diet quality in early childhood is inconsistently linked to obesity risk. Understanding may be limited by the use of cross-sectional data and the use of body mass index (BMI) to define adiposity in childhood.

Objective:
The objective of this study is to examine the effects of continued exposure to diets of varying quality across early childhood in relation to adiposity at 6 years.

Methods:
One thousand and eighteen children from a prospective UK birth cohort were studied. Diet was assessed using food frequency questionnaires when the children were aged 6 and 12 months, and 3 and 6 years; diet quality was determined according to scores for a principal component analysis-defined dietary pattern at each age (characterized by frequent consumption of fruits, vegetables and fish). At each age, children were allocated a value of 0/1/2 according to third of the distribution (bottom/middle/top) their diet quality score was in; values were summed to calculate an overall diet quality index (DQI) for early childhood (range 0–8). Obesity outcomes considered at 6 years were dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry-assessed fat mass and BMI.

Results:
One hundred and seven (11%) children had a DQI=0, indicating a consistently low diet quality, 339 (33%) had a DQI=1–3, 378 (37%) had a DQI=4–6 and 194 (19%) had a DQI=7–8. There was a strong association between lower DQI and higher fat mass z-score at 6 years that was robust to adjustment for confounders (fat mass s.d. per 1-unit DQI increase: β=−0.05 (95% confidence interval (CI): −0.09, −0.01), P=0.01). In comparison with children who had the highest diet quality (DQI=7–8), this amounted to a difference in fat mass of 14% (95% CI: 2%, 28%) at 6 years for children with the poorest diets (DQI=0). In contrast, no independent associations were observed between DQI and BMI.

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Accepted/In Press date: 18 May 2015
e-pub ahead of print date: 26 May 2015
Published date: 26 May 2015
Organisations: Medical Research Council, MRC Life-Course Epidemiology Unit

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 377426
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/377426
ISSN: 0307-0565
PURE UUID: 489af82a-4670-486d-b1f8-5ec4558e0e1e
ORCID for Sarah Crozier: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-9524-1127
ORCID for N.C. Harvey: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8194-2512
ORCID for K.M. Godfrey: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-4643-0618
ORCID for H.M. Inskip: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-8897-1749
ORCID for C. Cooper: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-3510-0709
ORCID for S.M. Robinson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1766-7269

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Date deposited: 08 Jun 2015 08:31
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 02:58

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Contributors

Author: H. Okubo
Author: Sarah Crozier ORCID iD
Author: N.C. Harvey ORCID iD
Author: K.M. Godfrey ORCID iD
Author: H.M. Inskip ORCID iD
Author: C. Cooper ORCID iD
Author: S.M. Robinson ORCID iD

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