title: Weight Gain in Infancy and Overweight or Obesity in Childhood across the Gestational Spectrum: a Prospective Birth Cohort Study.
abstract: This study aimed to investigate the optimal degree of weight gain across the gestational spectrum in 1971 children enrolled at birth and followed up to age 7 years. Weight gain in infancy was categorized into four groups based on weight gain z-scores: slow (<-0.67), on track (-0.67 to 0.67), rapid (0.67 to 1.28), and extremely rapid (>1.28). Underweight and overweight or obesity (OWO) were defined as a body mass index ≤5(th) and ≥85(th) percentile, respectively, for age and gender. In our population, OWO was far more common than underweight (39.7% vs. 3.6%). Weight gain tracked strongly from age 4 to 24 months, and was positively associated with OWO and an unfavorable pattern of metabolic biomarkers, although the degree of weight gain for the risk was different across gestational categories. Extremely rapid weight gain led to a particularly high risk of OWO among children born early term and late preterm: odds ratio: 3.3 (95% confidence interval: 1.9 to 5.5) and 3.7 (1.8 to 7.5), respectively, as compared to those with on track weight gain. Our findings suggest that monitoring and ensuring optimal weight gain across the entire gestational spectrum beginning from birth represents a first step towards primary prevention of childhood obesity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Center on Early Life Origins of Disease, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Guoying
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Center on Early Life Origins of Disease, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA.|Division of General Pediatrics &Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, USA.
authors.forename: Yiwei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: Division of General Pediatrics &Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Polk
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Divall
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Sally
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Radovick
authors.affiliation: Division of General Pediatrics &Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Moon
authors.affiliation: Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Center on Early Life Origins of Disease, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Paige
authors.affiliation: Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Center on Early Life Origins of Disease, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Xiumei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.affiliation: Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Center on Early Life Origins of Disease, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Deanna
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Caruso
authors.affiliation: Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Center on Early Life Origins of Disease, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Zhu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Center on Early Life Origins of Disease, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mallow
authors.affiliation: Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Center on Early Life Origins of Disease, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Sheila O
authors.initials: SO
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Science &Public Health, Wenzhou Medical University Center on Clinical &Epidemiological Eye Research, the Affiliated Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University Wenzhou, China.
authors.forename: Guangyun
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mao
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center, Boston, USA.
authors.forename: Colleen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pearson
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Mei-Cheng
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center, Boston, USA.
authors.forename: Barry
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zuckerman
authors.affiliation: Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Center on Early Life Origins of Disease, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA.|Division of General Pediatrics &Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Tina L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Center on Early Life Origins of Disease, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA.|Division of General Pediatrics &Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA.
authors.forename: Xiaobin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D001724:Birth Weight / Q000502:physiology; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D050177:Overweight / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D063766:Pediatric Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D012307:Risk Factors; D013851:Thinness / Q000503:physiopathology*; D015430:Weight Gain / Q000502:physiology*