National Study of Health and Growth: Social and family factors and obesity in primary schoolchildren

Abstract

The association of social and family factors with triceps skinfold and weight for height and age was assessed using multiple regression analyses for 5-11 year-old-children in England and Scotland. Parents' body build was the factor most consistently associated with the two proxy measures of obesity. Number of siblings in the family was inversely related to triceps skinfold thickness. Parents' body-build and number of siblings were more strongly related to our measures of obesity in the older age groups and in girls, whereas child's birth-weight was more associated with weight for height and triceps skinfold in the younger age groups. Father's social class and mother's education made almost no contribution to the variation of triceps skinfold and weight for height in children. The relative risk of obesity associated with any individual independent variables was less than or around two. We conclude that there is little scope for identifying the majority of children at risk of obesity in a characteristic social environment. However, the increase in the association between our measures of obesity in parents and older children provides a possible tool for the early detection of children who may become obese.

Socioeconomic Inequalities in Childhood Obesity in the United Kingdom: A Systematic Review of the Literature

“…Hawkins and colleagues [55] found no association between maternal education and overweight or obesity (according to IOTF BMI cutoffs [59]) among 13,188 3-year-old singleton children. Rona and Chinn [63] found similar results assessing the relation between maternal age at completion of education and triceps skin folds and weight-for-height among 9,815 children aged 5–11 years in Scotland and England.…”

“…There were two studies that found no association between maternal education and childhood obesity [55,63]. Hawkins and colleagues [55] found no association between maternal education and overweight or obesity (according to IOTF BMI cutoffs [59]) among 13,188 3-year-old singleton children.…”

“…Among them, there were 15 different household-level and individual-level SEP metrics assessed as determinants of obesity. Eleven studies assessed the relation between head-of-household occupational social class and obesity prevalence [29,42,49,50,51,60,61,62,63,64,65]. Seven assessed the relation between maternal education and obesity prevalence [50,51,55,61,63,66,67].…”

“…Among studies that utilized this SEP metric, 7 found that social class was inversely associated with obesity risk [29,49,50,60,61,62,63]. For example, among a nationally representative sample of children between 4 and 18 years of age from throughout the UK, Jebb and colleagues [49] found an inverse relationship between social class and obesity (according to IOTF BMI cutoffs [59]), with a significantly higher prevalence of obesity in social classes IV and V than in classes I–III (6.5 vs. 2.7%, p = 0.003).…”

RETROSPECTIVE The growth and development of the Annals of Human Biology : a 25-year retrospective

“…This led to the ® rst analysis of measurements of children of di erent ethnic groups in the UK, in relation to social and biological background (Rona and Chinn 1986). Overweight and obesity was a target no less than statural stunting: the NSHG showed that, with proper training and supervision, multiple measurers could measure triceps skinfold with reasonable accuracy allowing more focused ® ndings, for example on the secular trend and on ethnic group di erences, than from simple weight-for-height (Rona and Chinn 1982, Rona and Morris 1982.…”