Pre‐ and post‐natal factors and physical activity in childhood: The Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort study

Abstract

Several pre-and post-natal factors are suggested to impact the risk development of cardiovascular diseases and the risk of obesity later in life. 1,2 Early signs of disease are apparent already in childhood, in which a low or high birth weight, high maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI), and a rapid infant weight gain are associated with obesity and cardiometabolic risk factors. 3-6 Generally, these factors are either linked to undernutrition or overnutrition of the developing fetus or infant. Fewer studies have examined the possibility that preand post-natal factors may also influence subsequent health behaviors, for example, participation in physical activity. Most previous studies have examined the association between birth weight and subsequent physical activity. Although two systematic reviews 7,8 concluded that birth weight is unlikely to impact subsequent physical activity, studies generally only examined the linear association. There are probably different mechanisms linking developmental undernutrition (assessed eg, by a low birth weight) and developmental overnutrition (assessed eg, by a

Physical activity in childhood and later risk of inflammatory bowel disease: A Scandinavian birth cohort study

“…We modelled PA and ST separately as binary (high vs. low) and numerical variables (per hour/day). Motivated by previous studies 13 , 14 and reflecting the structure of the questionnaire, we set the closest possible option of ≥2 h/day as the limit for high PA at 3 years in both cohorts. However, considering differences in questionnaires and PA distribution in MoBa and ABIS, cohort‐specific cut‐offs were used for the 8‐year data (ABIS: high ≥2 h/day, low <2 h/day; MoBa: high ≥1 h/day, low <1 h/day).…”