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Secular trends of birth weight and its associations with obesity and hypertension among Southern Chinese children and adolescents

  • Xiaoying He , Zixian Shao , Jiajia Jing , Xiaotong Wang , Suhua Xu , Miao Wu and Yanna Zhu EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 18, 2022

Abstract

Objectives

The association of low or high birth weight (L/HBW) with obesity and hypertension in childhood remains unclear. We aimed to identify the secular trend of birth weight distribution and its relationship to obesity and hypertension in Southern Chinese children and adolescents.

Methods

6,561 individuals (6–17-year-old) were enrolled by multistage cluster sampling to observed the trend of birth weight distribution and its associated factors. 1,218 were further selected by group matching to investigate the correlation between birth weight and obesity or hypertension.

Results

Between 1997 and 2008, a significant decline in the LBW rate and no significant change in the HBW rate was found. LBW was associated with maternal BMI<18 kg/m2 (OR1.79, 95% CI 1.08–2.97) during pregnancy, while maternal BMI between 25.0 and 27.9 kg/m2 (OR1.62, 95% CI 1.04–2.52) and paternal BMI>28 kg/m2 (OR1.64, 95% CI 1.02–2.63) during pregnancy were associated with HBW. The prevalence of obesity was significantly higher with HBW than normal birth weight (NBW) or LBW (16.73, 6.25 and 5.50%, respectively). The prevalence rates of suspected hypertension were 1.62, 1.25 and 1.49% among LBW, NBW and HBW, respectively (p>0.05). LBW decreased the risks of childhood overweight (OR0.31, 95% CI 0.18–0.54), but had no effect on suspected hypertension. HBW increased the risks of childhood obesity (OR2.19, 95% CI 1.50–3.20), but decreased the risks of suspected hypertension (OR0.22, 95% CI 0.09–0.58).

Conclusions

HBW was positively associated with childhood obesity, and parental BMIs management might be one of the measurements to control birth weight to lessen childhood obesity.


Corresponding author: Yanna Zhu, Department of Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen Global Health Institute (SGHI), Sun Yat-sen University, No. 74 Zhongshan Road II, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, 510080, P.R. China, Phone: (+86)20 87330663, E-mail:
Xiaoying He, Zixian Shao and Jiajia Jing authors contributed equally to this work.

Funding source: Sanming Project of Medicine in Shenzhen

Award Identifier / Grant number: SZSM20180306

Award Identifier / Grant number: 2021A1515010439

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the participants, doctors and nurses involved in this study. We also thank American Journal Experts for editing the manuscript for English language.

  1. Research funding: Funding of this work was supported by Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Grant No.2021A1515010439) and Sanming Project of Medicine in Shenzhen (Grant No. SZSM20180306). The financial supporters had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

  2. Author contributions: Yanna Zhu was the project leader and contributed to all aspects of this work. Zixian Shao, Jiajia Jing, Xiaotong Wang, Suhua Xu and Miao Wu contributed to the data assembly and analysis. Yanna Zhu, Zixian Shao and Xiaoying He drafted the manuscript. Yanna Zhu contributed to the funding application and manuscript revision. All authors contributed intellectually to this manuscript and approved this final version. All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  3. Competing interests: Authors state no conflict of interest.

  4. Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in this study.

  5. Ethical approval: The study protocols were approved by the Ethical Committee of Peking University.

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Received: 2021-06-24
Accepted: 2022-10-18
Published Online: 2022-11-18
Published in Print: 2022-12-16

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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