Asked 23 Sep 2019
Does being born on the 99th centile result in obesity in childhood?
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- Answered 23 Sep 2019 Conflict of interest declaration: None I found no articles to directly answer the specific question but there is a lot of evidence relating to birth weight generally and obesity. The following is not meant to be exhaustive! In 2012, this paper was published “Birth weight and overweight/obesity in adults: a meta-analysis” [1] and this concluded: “Neither positively linear nor J- or U-shaped relations exist between birth weight and overweight/obesity in adults. It is high birth weight, not low birth weight, that is associated with increased risk of overweight/obesity in adults.” “Birth weight and childhood obesity: a 12-country study” was published in 2015 [2] and reported the following conclusion: “High levels of birth weight, defined as birth weight ⩾3500 g, were associated with increased odds of obesity among 9–11-year-old children in 12 countries. However, sex differences in the association between birth weight and the risk of obesity need to be considered when planning interventions to reduce childhood obesity.” The 2016 paper “Risk Factors for Childhood Obesity in the First 1,000 Days: A Systematic Review” [3] found: “…Several risk factors during the first 1,000 days were consistently associated with later childhood obesity. These included higher maternal pre-pregnancy BMI, prenatal tobacco exposure, maternal excess gestational weight gain, high infant birth weight, and accelerated infant weight gain…” The final paper I’m highlighting is one from this year: “Association between the full range of birth weight and childhood weight status: by gestational age” [4], which found: “Overall, low birth weight increased the risk of childhood underweight, but did not affect the risk of overweight or obesity. High birth weight increased childhood overweight and obesity, but decreased underweight. Similar trends were observed in the term group.” I include 5 other references that came up and you may find useful [5-9] References 1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22383072 2) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4850624/ 3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26916261 4) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30341434 5) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31443282 6) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31395416 7) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5855460/ 8) https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/6/e015576 9) https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/5/e024532
- Answered 23 Sep 2019 Conflict of interest declaration: None We (Trip) poster the Q via Twitter and got the following response https://twitter.com/damian_roland/status/1176232542955024387?s=21. This links to additional papers.
- Answered 24 Sep 2019 Conflict of interest declaration: None And another response on Twitter https://twitter.com/thermalponchos/status/1176313129610833922