OBJECTIVE To examine whether the association between birth weight and fat distribution in childhood is modified by parental overweight. METHODS Cross-sectional study of 728 Danish children aged 8-10 and 14-16 years. The main outcomes were waist circumference, waist-to-height ratio, subscapular skinfold, and subscapular-to-triceps skinfold ratio. Analyses were stratified by parental overweight...

BACKGROUND Sarcopenia is defined as the loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength with aging. Recent epidemiological studies have shown that men and women who grew less well in early life have lower muscle strength. Our objective was to investigate the relationship between birth weight, infant growth, and the development of sarcopenia. METHODS We studied 730 men and 673 women, of known birth ...

Using rich longitudinal data from the Philippines, we causally estimate the transmission of maternal health to child health, from birth through preadolescence. To obtain exogenous variation in maternal health we exploit an array of data on climate (temperature, precipitation and cyclone) shocks surrounding the time of the mother’s birth and during her early childhood. This large set of instrume...

OBJECTIVE To study maternal risk factors associated with full term low birth weight (LBW) neonates. DESIGN Matched pair case control study. SETTING Multicenter study including 2 medical colleges and 1 civil hospital, between July 2009 to December 2009. PATIENTS Of 2382 neonates screened, 274 full term LBW babies (of 638) and 274 pair matched controls (of 1744) were included in the study. ...

Longitudinal height and weight data from 4649 Dutch twin pairs between birth and 2.5 years of age were analyzed. The data were first summarized into parameters of a polynomial of degree 4 by a mixed-effects procedure. Next, the variation and covariation in the parameters of the growth curve (size at one year of age, growth velocity, deceleration of growth, rate of change in deceleration [i.e., ...

BACKGROUND Longitudinal growth associations with genetic variants identified for adult BMI may provide insights into the timing of obesity susceptibility. OBJECTIVE The objective was to explore associations of known BMI loci with measures of body size from birth to adulthood. DESIGN A total of 2537 individuals from a longitudinal British birth cohort were genotyped for 11 genetic variants r...

RATIONALE The lifecycle perspective reminds us that the roots of adult ill-health may start in-utero or in early childhood. Nutritional and infectious disease insults in early life, the critical first 1000 days, are associated with stunting in childhood, and subsequent short adult stature. There is limited or no opportunity for stunted children above 2 years of age to experience catch-up growth...

BACKGROUND Low birth weight (LBW) is associated with an increased risk of mortality, adverse metabolic conditions, and long-term chronic morbidities. The relationship between LWB and short maternal stature coupled with nutritional status was investigated in poor communities. METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS A cross-sectional population-based study involving 2226 mother-child pairs was conducted dur...

OBJECTIVE To examine the genetic and environmental influences on variances in weight, height, and BMI, from birth through 19 years of age, in boys and girls from three continents. DESIGN AND SETTINGS Cross-sectional twin study. Data obtained from a total of 23 twin birth-cohorts from four countries: Canada, Sweden, Denmark, and Australia. Participants were Monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) ...