Patterns of BMI development between 10 and 42 years of age and their determinants in the 1970 British Cohort Study

Abstract

BackgroundMixture modelling is a useful approach to identify subgroups in a population who share similar trajectories. We aimed to identify distinct body mass index (BMI) trajectories between 10 and 42 years and investigate how known early-life risk factors are related to trajectories.MethodsSample: 9187 participants in the 1970 British Birth Cohort Study, with BMI observations between 10 and 42 years and data on birth weight, parental BMI, socioeconomic status, breast feeding and puberty. Latent growth mixture modelling in Mplus was used to model age-related BMI trajectories and test associations of risk factors with trajectory membership.ResultsA three latent class model was most credible: (1) normative: 92%: started normal weight but gradually increased BMI to become overweight in adulthood; (2) childhood onset persistent obesity (COP): 4%: persistently high BMI from childhood; (3) adolescent and young adulthood onset obesity (AYAO): 4%: normal weight in childhood but had a steep ascending trajectory. Higher maternal and paternal BMI and early puberty increased the probability of being in either the COP or the AYAO classes compared with the normative class.ConclusionMost individuals gradually increased BMI and became overweight in mid-adulthood. Only 8% demonstrated more severe BMI trajectories. Further research is needed to understand the underlying body composition changes and health risks in the COP and AYAO classes.

Joint trajectories of body mass index and waist circumference in early-life to mid-life adulthood and incident hypertension: the China Health and Nutrition Survey

“…The low-increasing group, with baseline BMI around 20 kg/m 2 , increased slowly during the 20–60 years period, while the high-increasing group with lower baseline BMI increased rapidly. Some studies, using data from China, the UK and Finland, explored BMI trajectories for childhood and early adulthood, showed that BMI may have 2–6 trajectories 13 14 20–25. Though the numbers of trajectories were different among these studies, they all discovered a low-increasing or low-stable group and a high-increasing group, 13 1420–25 which was in line with our results.…”

Group‐based trajectory modeling of body mass index and body size over the life course: A scoping review

“…The mean trajectory duration (time between first and last anthropometric measurement) was 29.2 years (SD = 17.1). 22 studies that began growth assessment in childhood 5,14,18,20,22,30–32,36,38,41–51 and extended into adulthood. Of these 22 studies with growth trajectories beginning in childhood, five studies 20,22,38,41,51 had measures until young adulthood (19–23 years old), 12 studies 16,30–32,36,42–50 had measures until midadulthood (38–50 years old), and five studies 5,14,17,18,46 had measures until older adulthood (60–80 years old).…”

“…22 studies that began growth assessment in childhood 5,14,18,20,22,30–32,36,38,41–51 and extended into adulthood. Of these 22 studies with growth trajectories beginning in childhood, five studies 20,22,38,41,51 had measures until young adulthood (19–23 years old), 12 studies 16,30–32,36,42–50 had measures until midadulthood (38–50 years old), and five studies 5,14,17,18,46 had measures until older adulthood (60–80 years old). The remaining studies ( n = 37) 15,19,21–29,33–35,37,39,40,52–72 did not include any childhood measures, and only included measures >18 years of age.…”

Prevalence and correlates of weight gain attempts across five countries

“…Specifically, future research should investigate the utility of such efforts that focus on weight-and appearance-change behaviors, particularly weight gain attempts, as well as considering populations for whom these efforts may have particular applicability (i.e., adolescent boys and young adult men). However, despite an overall dearth of research explicitly exploring weight gain attempts among men in middle-and older-adulthood (Brown & Lavender, 2021), it is notable that men in these older age groups do experience body dissatisfaction, including concerns related to perceived reductions in athleticism and muscularity (Lodge & Umberson, 2013), which may be driven by natural weight gain as one ages (Chu et al, 2021;Viner, Costa, & Johnson, 2019;Yang et al, 2021). As such, this warrants additional research to inform a Race/ethnicity categories in each country as per census questions asked in each country: Australia: majority = only speaks English at home, minority = speaks a language besides English at home; Canada: majority = "White (European descent)," minority = any other race/ ethnicity; Mexico: majority = nonindigenous, minority = indigenous; United Kingdom: majority = "White," minority = any other race/ethnicity; United States: majority = "White," minority = any other race/ethnicity.…”