Birth size and physical activity in a cohort of Indian children aged 6–10 years

Abstract

There is evidence of a reduction in children's physical activity in India in the last decade. Our objective was to assess whether size and body composition at birth are associated with physical activity in school-aged children. Children from a prospective observational cohort study born in Mysore, South India between 1997 and 1998 (n = 663) had neonatal anthropometric measurements made within 72 h of delivery [weight, mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC), chest, abdomen and head circumference, crown-heel, crown-buttock and leg length, triceps and subscapular skinfolds]. At 6-10 years, children (n = 449) were asked to wear AM7164 or GT1M Actigraph accelerometers for 7 days. Body composition was measured within 6 months of activity monitoring. Arm muscle area at birth and time of activity monitoring was calculated from MUAC and skinfold measurements.Activity outcome measures were: mean accelerometer counts per minute (cpm); counts per day and proportion of time spent in moderate and vigorous activity. The mean (S.D.) number of days with ≥500 min of recorded accelerometer data was 7.0 (1.1). Linear regression models showed no significant associations between any of the neonatal anthropometric measures and the activity variables. Body fat percentage at 7.5 years was negatively associated with all activity variables (B = −4.69, CI: −7.31, −2.07 for mean cpm).In conclusion, this study showed no associations between body size and skinfold thickness at birth and objectively measured physical activity in childhood.

Results From India’s 2016 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth

“…One national survey, 4 several state (ie, province) and city-level surveys, [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] as well as baseline data from an ongoing longitudinal state-level survey 19 were used as data sources for the 2016 Indian Report Card. In addition, we also reviewed appropriate gray literature to complete the grading process.…”

“…13,14 Kehoe et al used accelerometer data showing that children aged 6 to 10 years (n = 415) living in or around the city of Mysuru were sedentary for an average of 5.3 hours per day. 16 Swaminathan et al studied sedentary behavior in the city of New Delhi to show that children aged 8 to 15 years accumulated less than 1 hour/day of screen time. 11 Similarly, a Gulati et al study in 7 major Indian cities reported that children aged 3 to 11 years spent, on average, less than 1.4 hours/day watching television and less than 1 hour/week playing video games.…”

The Association of Birth Weight and Infant Growth with Energy Balance-Related Behavior – A Systematic Review and Best-Evidence Synthesis of Human Studies

“…Five studies additionally reported other birth size measures besides birth weight (ponderal index, birth length, head circumference, or a combination of these)[14, 15, 33, 48, 49], and one study reported ponderal indices only. [59] Four articles additionally reported the effects of infant growth, besides birth weight.…”

“…The two reviewers reached consensus on all initial disagreements. Three studies were judged to be of high overall quality[48, 60, 62], 11 studies were of moderate quality, and the remainder of 27 studies was judged to be low overall quality. The most common weakness was the absence of a clear description of the psychometric properties of the measures and not controlling for relevant confounding variables in the analyses.…”

“…This is based on the results of two studies of high quality[48, 62], five studies of moderate quality[11, 14, 29, 51, 54] and 12 studies of low quality. Fourteen of the 19 studies, including both high-quality studies and all of the studies objectively assessing PA, found no significant association of birth weight with PA.…”