The effect of early feeding practices on growth indices and obesity at preschool children from four European countries and UK schoolchildren and adolescents

Abstract

Early feeding practices, i.e., any breastfeeding duration and age of introduction of complementary foods, do not appear to be consistently associated with height z-score, overweight/obesity, and body fat mass in preschool children from four European countries and in UK schoolchildren and adolescents. What is known? • Healthy growth and childhood obesity partly originate from early life. What is new? • Breastfeeding duration less than 6 months was associated with lower height z-scores in 5-year-old French children, while the opposite was observed in 4-year-old British children. • Introduction of complementary foods earlier than 4 months was positively associated with fat mass levels in 5-year-old French children, but not in the other three countries. • Early feeding practices did not appear to be consistently associated with growth and adiposity indices, and as such, no clear influence can be observed.

Age of introduction of complementary feeding and overweight in adolescence and adulthood: A systematic review

“…From the studies included in this review, seven studies investigated the association between the age at which solid foods were introduced and overweight in adolescence, and two studies evaluated this relationship in adulthood (Fall et al, ; Schack‐nielsen et al, ). The age of introduction of complementary feeding was recorded as a continuous variable in months, and the definition as early or late varied among the studies: For Garden et al (), Leary, Lawlor, Smith, Brion, and Ness (), and Lin et al (), early introduction was defined as the child is being less than 3 months of age; for Neutzling et al (), Schack‐nielsen et al (), and Vehapoglu, Turkmen, Nursoy, and Ozkaya (), less than 4 months; and for Fall et al (), Moschonis et al (), and Seach et al (), at an age greater than 4 and 6 months.…”

“…In order to evaluate the overweight, Schack‐nielsen et al () used the WC, and Fall et al () used the WC and SSF as indicators of excess weight in addition to BMI. The study by Leary et al () used the body fat percentage indicator, evaluated by means of the Tanita TBF 305® device, and Moschonis et al () used the Bioimpedance and dual X‐ray absorptiometry to evaluate body composition. The BMI classifications used were WHO, 1995 and 2007; CDC, 2000; IOTF, 2000; and Neyzi's reference for Turks (Neyzi et al, ).…”

“…The BMI classifications used were WHO, 1995 and 2007; CDC, 2000; IOTF, 2000; and Neyzi's reference for Turks (Neyzi et al, ). In four studies (Fall et al, ; Lin et al, ; Moschonis et al, ; Seach et al, ), the BMI classification of IOTF (Cole, Bellizzi, Flegal, & Dietz, ) was used.…”

“…According to the methodological quality assessment proposed by Downs and Black (), it was observed that the majority of the studies presented more than 80% of adequacy as far as quality was concerned, with percentages varying between 83% and 94%; post hoc exploratory analysis was not done in any of the studies. Two studies were classified as being of inadequate quality: Moschonis et al () with 72% and Vehapoglu et al () with 44%. The questions that factored into this evaluation the most were losses and follow‐up characteristics that were not considered and described in the study; the sample used not being representative of the population; and the results not being clearly described.…”

“…In this review, nine studies investigated the relationship between the age of introduction of complementary feeding and BMI in adolescence, and one of these studies study evaluated only the percentage of fat in adolescents. Of the studies that did not find an association between the age of introduction of complementary feeding and overweight in adolescence and adulthood, one study (Vehapoglu et al, ) used an unadjusted analysis model; one study (Garden et al, ) showed adjusted analyses, and four studies used adjusted and unadjusted models (Leary et al, ; Lin et al, ; Moschonis et al, ; Neutzling et al, ).…”