A priori and a posteriori dietary patterns at the age of 1 year and body composition at the age of 6 years: the Generation R Study

Abstract

Dietary patterns have been linked to obesity in adults, however, not much is known about this association in early childhood. We examined associations of different types of dietary patterns in 1-year-old children with body composition at school age in 2026 children participating in a population-based cohort study. Dietary intake at the age of 1 year was assessed with a food-frequency questionnaire. At the children’s age of 6 years we measured their body composition with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and we calculated body mass index, fat mass index (FMI), and fat-free mass index (FFMI). Three dietary pattern approaches were used: (1) An a priori-defined diet quality score; (2) dietary patterns based on variation in food intake, derived from principal-component-analysis (PCA); and (3) dietary patterns based on variations in FMI and FFMI, derived with reduced-rank-regression (RRR). Both the a priori-defined diet score and a ‘Health-conscious’ PCA-pattern were characterized by a high intake of fruit, vegetables, grains, and vegetable oils, and, after adjustment for confounders, children with higher adherence to these patterns had a higher FFMI at 6 years [0.19 SD (95 % CI 0.08;0.30) per SD increase in diet score], but had no different FMI. One of the two RRR-patterns was also positively associated with FFMI and was characterized by intake of whole grains, pasta and rice, and vegetable oils. Our results suggest that different a priori- and a posteriori-derived health-conscious dietary patterns in early childhood are associated with a higher fat-free mass, but not with fat mass, in later childhood.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10654-016-0179-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Dietary Patterns and Risk of Obesity and Early Childhood Caries in Australian Toddlers: Findings from an Australian Cohort Study

“…The lack of association between diet, obesity and dental caries in the present study is unsurprising given the inconsistent findings reported previously from investigations of both a priori and a posteriori-derived dietary patterns and measures of weight status [21,38,46,47,48] and dental caries [49,50,51,52] in early life. A possible explanation for the lack of association seen in the present study is that it may be too early to detect the influence of poor diet.…”

Dietary Patterns After the Weaning and Lactation Period Are Associated With Celiac Disease Autoimmunity in Children

“…Population-specific dietary patterns were also extracted a posteriori, using the principal component analysis and reduced rank regression methods. First, the food items assessed with the FFQ were classified according to 27 food groups (Supplementary Table 1) based on previous studies, 22,26 but with adjustments to reflect characteristics of infant feeding practices potentially relevant in the context of celiac disease (eg, distinction between dairy products and formula-feeding or breastfeeding). Subsequently, principal component analysis was performed on those food groups to extract the dietary components that explained the largest amount of variance in food intake.…”

Diet quality in childhood: the Generation R Study

“…Given the complexity of the human diet and the strong interactions between intake of different foods and nutrients, measuring overall dietary patterns is recommended as a complementary approach to measuring the intake of only single foods or nutrients [ 5 , 6 ]. One way to study overall diet is by predefined diet quality scores, which are usually based on dietary guidelines [ 5 , 7 ]. Although the use of diet quality indices in children has increased over the past years, Marshall et al suggested in their systematic review that more prospective cohort studies evaluating diet quality in children and its impact on health are needed [ 8 ].…”