Do overweight children necessarily make overweight adults? Repeated cross sectional annual nationwide survey of Japanese girls and women over nearly six decades

Abstract

Objective: To compare growth curves of body mass index from children to adolescents, and then to young adults, in Japanese girls and women in birth cohorts born from 1930 to 1999.

Design: Retrospective repeated cross sectional annual nationwide surveys (national nutrition survey, Japan) carried out from 1948 to 2005.

Setting: Japan.

Participants: 76,635 females from 1 to 25 years of age.

Main outcome measure: Body mass index.

Results: Generally, body mass index decreased in preschool children (2-5 years), increased in children (6-12 years) and adolescents (13-18 years), and slightly decreased in young adults (19-25 years) in these Japanese females. However, the curves differed among birth cohorts. More recent cohorts were more overweight as children but thinner as young women. The increments in body mass index in early childhood were larger in more recent cohorts than in older cohorts. However, the increments in body mass index in adolescents were smaller and the decrease in body mass index in young adults started earlier, with lower peak values in more recent cohorts than in older cohorts. The decrements in body mass index in young adults were similar in all birth cohorts.

Conclusions: An overweight birth cohort in childhood does not necessarily continue to be overweight in young adulthood. Not only secular trends in body mass index at fixed ages but also growth curves for wide age ranges by birth cohorts should be considered to study obesity and thinness. Growth curves by birth cohorts were produced by a repeated cross sectional annual survey over nearly six decades.

Fig 1 Growth curves of body mass index by female birth cohorts (1930s to 1990s), from national nutrition survey, Japan, 1948-2005

Fig 2 Annual change in body mass index by female birth cohorts (1930s to 1990s), from national nutrition survey, Japan, 1948-2005