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Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood-to-adulthood BMI tracking in three British birth cohorts

Tom, N; David, B; Rebecca, H; William, J; (2019) Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood-to-adulthood BMI tracking in three British birth cohorts. International Journal of Obesity 10.1038/s41366-019-0387-z. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Body mass index (BMI) tracks from childhood-to-adulthood, but the extent to which this relationship varies across the distribution and according to socio-economic position (SEP) is unknown. We aimed to address this using data from three British cohort studies. // METHODS: We used data from: 1946 National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD, n = 2470); 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS, n = 7747); 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS, n = 5323). BMI tracking between 11 and 42 years was estimated using quantile regression, with estimates reflecting correlation coefficients. SEP disparities in tracking were investigated using a derived SEP variable based on parental education reported in childhood. This SEP variable was then interacted with the 11-year BMI z-score. // RESULTS: In each cohort and sex, tracking was stronger at the upper end of the distribution of BMI at 42 years. For example, for men in the 1946 NSHD, the tracking estimate at the 10th quantile was 0.31 (0.20, 0.41), increasing to 0.71 (0.61, 0.82) at the 90th quantile. We observed no strong evidence of SEP inequalities in tracking in men in the 1946 and 1958 cohorts. In the 1970 cohort, however, we observed tentative evidence of stronger tracking in low SEP groups, particularly in women and at the higher end of the BMI distribution. For example, women in the 1970 cohort from low SEP backgrounds had tracking coefficients at the 50th, 70th, and 90th quantiles, which were 0.05 (-0.04; 0.15), 0.19 (0.06; 0.31), and 0.22 (0.02; 0.43) units higher, respectively, than children from high SEP groups. // CONCLUSION: Tracking was consistently stronger at the higher quantiles of the BMI distribution. We observed suggestive evidence for a pattern of greater BMI tracking in lower (compared to higher) SEP groups in the more recently born cohort, particularly in women and at the higher end of the BMI distribution.

Type: Article
Title: Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood-to-adulthood BMI tracking in three British birth cohorts
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41366-019-0387-z
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-019-0387-z
Language: English
Additional information: © The Author(s) 2019. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons .org/ licenses/by/4.0/.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci > Department of Targeted Intervention
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10076210
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