title: Estimation of newborn risk for child or adolescent obesity: lessons from longitudinal birth cohorts.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Prevention of obesity should start as early as possible after birth. We aimed to build clinically useful equations estimating the risk of later obesity in newborns, as a first step towards focused early prevention against the global obesity epidemic.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analyzed the lifetime Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 (NFBC1986) (N = 4,032) to draw predictive equations for childhood and adolescent obesity from traditional risk factors (parental BMI, birth weight, maternal gestational weight gain, behaviour and social indicators), and a genetic score built from 39 BMI/obesity-associated polymorphisms. We performed validation analyses in a retrospective cohort of 1,503 Italian children and in a prospective cohort of 1,032 U.S. children.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the NFBC1986, the cumulative accuracy of traditional risk factors predicting childhood obesity, adolescent obesity, and childhood obesity persistent into adolescence was good: AUROC = 0·78[0·74-0.82], 0·75[0·71-0·79] and 0·85[0·80-0·90] respectively (all p<0·001). Adding the genetic score produced discrimination improvements ≤1%. The NFBC1986 equation for childhood obesity remained acceptably accurate when applied to the Italian and the U.S. cohort (AUROC = 0·70[0·63-0·77] and 0·73[0·67-0·80] respectively) and the two additional equations for childhood obesity newly drawn from the Italian and the U.S. datasets showed good accuracy in respective cohorts (AUROC = 0·74[0·69-0·79] and 0·79[0·73-0·84]) (all p<0·001). The three equations for childhood obesity were converted into simple Excel risk calculators for potential clinical use.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study provides the first example of handy tools for predicting childhood obesity in newborns by means of easily recorded information, while it shows that currently known genetic variants have very little usefulness for such prediction.
authors.affiliation: Unité Mixte de Recherche 8199, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Pasteur Institute, Lille, France. anita.morandi@voila.fr
authors.forename: Anita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Morandi
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Meyre
authors.forename: Stéphane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lobbens
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kleinman
authors.forename: Marika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kaakinen
authors.forename: Sheryl L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Rifas-Shiman
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Vatin
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gaget
authors.forename: Anneli
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pouta
authors.forename: Anna-Liisa
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Hartikainen
authors.forename: Jaana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Laitinen
authors.forename: Aimo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ruokonen
authors.forename: Shikta
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Das
authors.forename: Anokhi Ali
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Elliott
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Maffeis
authors.forename: Matthew W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Gillman
authors.forename: Marjo-Riitta
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Järvelin
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Froguel
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001724:Birth Weight; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D012306:Risk; D044465:White People; D055815:Young Adult