Socioeconomic and early-life factors and risk of being overweight or obese in children of Swedish- and foreign-born parents

Amal R Khanolkar, Ulla Sovio, Jonathan W Bartlett, Thomas Wallby, Ilona Koupil

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Ethnic minorities/immigrants have differential health as compared with natives. The epidemic in child overweight/obesity (OW/OB) in Sweden is leveling off, but lower socioeconomic groups and immigrants/ethnic minorities may not have benefited equally from this trend. We investigated whether nonethnic Swedish children are at increased risk for being OW/OB and whether these associations are mediated by parental socioeconomic position (SEP) and/or early-life factors such as birth weight, maternal smoking, BMI, and breastfeeding.

METHODS: Data on 10,628 singleton children (51% boys, mean age: 4.8 y, born during the period 2000-2004) residing in Uppsala were analyzed. OW/OB was computed using the International Obesity Task Force's sex- and age-specific cutoffs. The mother's nativity was used as proxy for ethnicity. Logistic regression was used to analyze ethnicity-OW/OB associations.

RESULTS: Children of North African, Iranian, South American, and Turkish ethnicity had increased odds for being overweight/obese as compared with children of Swedish ethnicity (adjusted odds ratio (OR): 2.60 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.57-4.27), 1.67 (1.03-2.72), 3.00 (1.86-4.80), and 2.90 (1.73-4.88), respectively). Finnish children had decreased odds for being overweight/obese (adjusted OR: 0.53 (0.32-0.90)).

CONCLUSION: Ethnic differences in a child's risk for OW/OB exist in Sweden that cannot be explained by SEP or maternal or birth factors. As OW/OB often tracks into adulthood, more effective public health policies that intervene at an early age are needed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)356-63
Number of pages8
JournalPediatric Research
Volume74
Issue number3
Early online date24 Jul 2013
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 24 Jul 2013

Keywords

  • Adult
  • Africa, Northern/ethnology
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Female
  • Finland/ethnology
  • Humans
  • Logistic Models
  • Male
  • Obesity/ethnology
  • Odds Ratio
  • Overweight/ethnology
  • Prevalence
  • Socioeconomic Factors
  • South America/ethnology
  • Sweden/epidemiology
  • Turkey/ethnology

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