The consumption of fatty and sugary foods and time spent in front of the television are all bad habits that can have an impact on the body mass index (BMI) of young children, reveals an Australian study.
- This longitudinal study following children between their 18 and 60 months shows that there is a clear link between the body mass index (BMI) score and lifestyle habits.
- Children who tend to eat foods that are too fatty and sugary, and spend time in front of the television, will see these unhealthy habits immediately impact their BMI.
In young children, healthy lifestyle habits are essential to be healthy and avoid being overweight. This is shown by researchers from the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Deakin University (Australia) in the journal The Obesity Society. They publish the results of the first ever longitudinal study showing that changes in lifestyle habits in preschool children were associated with simultaneous changes in body mass index (BMI) scores.
“Findings from this study will help guide interventions and policies to prevent obesity in young children and will be of great interest to paediatricians, researchers, policy makers and the general public”says Miaobing Zheng, first author of the work.
A link between childhood obesity and lifestyle habits
While longitudinal studies linking lifestyles and childhood obesity have so far remained rare, this new work does point to the association of stable healthy lifestyles and a concomitant normal score trajectory. BMI in children aged 18 to 60 months.
To achieve this result, the researchers used data from a longitudinal cohort of 439 children. The data was collected from 2008 as a 15-month, parent-focused cluster randomized controlled trial aimed at reducing obesity risk behaviors in children up to 18 months old. The children were then followed up again at 42 and 60 months.
The results allowed the researchers to identify three lifestyle trajectories of BMI scores in children: an “Unhealthy lifestyle, low BMI” group, an Unhealthy lifestyle, high BMI group, and finally a group “Healthy Lifestyle, Average BMI”.
This last group included 53% of the children studied, and was characterized by a healthy lifestyle: regular consumption of fruits and vegetables and time spent mostly outdoors. Conversely, the children in the first two groups had less healthy lifestyles: consumption of food rich in sugars and fats but poor in nutrients, and time mostly spent in front of the television.
For the study authors, this co-occurrence of stable lifestyles and BMI score trajectories in early childhood highlights the importance of initiating lifestyle-based obesity prevention from the start of childhood. the life. They also believe that this prevention should target both parents and children, to raise their awareness from an early age.
“Young children learn by imitating what they see daily. There is no doubt that children copy behaviors observed in the presence of parents, whether healthy or not, explains Liliana Aguayo, expert in childhood obesity invited to comment on the study. The results of this study highlight the importance of early childhood as a critical period for the development of obesity. Further research is needed to identify effective approaches for influencing the health behaviors of parents and children simultaneously.”
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