Early anthropometric measures and reproductive factors as predictors of body mass index and obesity among older women

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:To examine whether early anthropometric measures and reproductive factors were associated with body mass index (BMI), overweight, and obesity. DESIGN: Cross-sectional, observational study. SUBJECTS: In all, 18 109 healthy women who participated in the Swedish Mammography Cohort aged 49-83 y. MEASUREMENTS: Early anthropometric (birthweight and body shape at age 10 y) and reproductive (age at menarche, age at the birth of the first child, and parity) variables were our predictors and current BMI, overweight (BMI 25-29.99 kg/m 2 ), and obesity (BMI Z30 kg/m 2 ) were our outcomes. RESULTS: In multivariate-adjusted polytomous logistic regression analysis, risk of overweight and obesity increased with increasing body shape at age 10 y and decreased with increasing age at menarche and age at first birth (P for trend o0.0001). A U-shaped relation with birthweight was observed. In our tests for effect modification of the relation with overweight/obesity (ow/ob; BMI Z25 kg/m 2 ), we detected significant interactions between body shape at 10 y and age (Po0.0001); body shape at 10 y and physical activity (Po0.0001); age at first birth and smoking (P ¼ 0.02); and parity and physical activity (P ¼ 0.004). The increased risk of ow/ob among women who reported a larger childhood body shape was reduced as women moved from the lowest to highest quartile of physical activity in adulthood. Likewise, the increasing risk of ow/ob among women with greater parity was reduced with increased physical activity. CONCLUSION: Early anthropometric measures and reproductive factors are significantly associated with BMI, overweight, and obesity among older women. The effects of childhood body weight, age at first birth, and parity may be modified by adult lifestyle choices, as well as age.

Association between weight at birth and body composition in childhood: A Brazilian cohort study

“…Previous studies have shown that the association between birth weight and obesity later in life apparently follows a U-shaped curve [8]. However, due to the continuous increase, in the last two decades, of mean birth weight in several countries worldwide [9,10], it is expected that higher birth weight will play a more important role as a risk factor for further obesity [5,11,12] than low birth weight.…”

Persistent effects of women’s parity and breastfeeding patterns on their body mass index: results from the Million Women Study

“…9, 10 In the longer term, after a woman's reproductive years are over, some investigators have also found that various measures of adiposity are increased the more children women had, although the evidence is somewhat inconsistent. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 To our knowledge only two small studies have looked at the association between breastfeeding history and postmenopausal adiposity and their findings suggest a possible reduction in BMI associated with breastfeeding. 17, 18 Women's BMI is known to be related to socioeconomic factors, smoking and physical activity, and these factors are associated with reproductive history.…”

Influence of birth weight and adult body composition on 17β-estradiol levels in young women

“…Some studies have observed that childhood obesity may accelerate age at menarche, especially in those of low birth weight (5), (13), (44), (45), and early age at menarche is a known risk factor for breast cancer development. In our study we observed that women of birth weight < 3530 g tended to have an earlier age at menarche than those in the highest birth weight tertile, " 3530 g. A Swedish study suggested that girls who at birth were relatively small for gestational age had higher childhood growth velocities than other girls (46).…”