Maternal prepregnancy BMI is negatively associated with children's cognitive performance, even after adjusting for multiple socio-demographic confounders and children's BMI. The relationship appears to become stronger as children get older, although the overall effect size is modest. In utero fetal programming or residual confounding may explain these findings.

Current implementation of public health policy in the UK is not successful in preventing children from developing one of the severe manifestations of VDD. Further studies are required to evaluate the epidemiology of symptomatic VDD more broadly in order to guide future public health policy decisions.

There has been a marked increase in diagnosis of vitamin D deficiency in children over the past decade. Future research should explore the drivers for this change in diagnostic behavior and the reasons prompting investigation of vitamin D status in clinical practice.

No abstract