Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jul 1;13(7):2291.
doi: 10.3390/nu13072291.

Infant Feeding and Ethnic Differences in Body Mass Index during Childhood: A Prospective Study

Affiliations

Infant Feeding and Ethnic Differences in Body Mass Index during Childhood: A Prospective Study

Outi Sirkka et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

This study investigated ethnic differences in childhood body mass index (BMI) in children from Dutch and Turkish descent and the role of infant feeding factors (breastfeeding duration, milk feeding frequency, as well as the timing, frequency and variety of complementary feeding (CF)). We used data from 244 children (116 Dutch and 128 Turkish) participating in a prospective study in the Netherlands. BMI was measured at 2, 3 and 5 years and standard deviation scores (sds) were derived using WHO references. Using linear mixed regression analyses, we examined ethnic differences in BMI-sds between 2 and 5 years, and the role of infant feeding in separate models including milk or CF factors, or both (full model). Relative to Dutch children, Turkish children had higher BMI-sds at age 3 (mean difference: 0.26; 95%CI: 0.04, 0.48) and 5 (0.63; 0.39, 0.88), but not at 2 years (0.08; -0.16, 0.31). Ethnic differences in BMI-sds were somewhat attenuated by CF factors at age 3 (0.16; -0.07, 0.40) and 5 years (0.50; 0.24, 0.77), whereas milk feeding had a minor impact. Of all factors, only CF variety was associated with BMI-sds in the full model. CF factors, particularly CF variety, explain a small fraction of the BMI-sds differences between Dutch and Turkish children. The role of CF variety on childhood BMI requires further investigation.

Keywords: BMI; breastfeeding; complementary feeding; ethnicity; infant feeding.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

O.S. and M.A-B. are employees of Danone Nutricia Research.

References

    1. Di Cesare M., Sorić M., Bovet P., Miranda J.J., Bhutta Z., Stevens G.A., Laxmaiah A., Kengne A.P., Bentham J. The epidemiological burden of obesity in childhood: A worldwide epidemic requiring urgent action. BMC Med. 2019;17:212. doi: 10.1186/s12916-019-1449-8. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. de Wilde J.A., Meeuwsen R.C., Middelkoop B.J. Growing ethnic disparities in prevalence of overweight and obesity in children 2–15 years in the Netherlands. Eur. J. Public Health. 2018;28:1023–1028. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/cky104. - DOI - PubMed
    1. van Dommelen P., Schonbeck Y., HiraSing R.A., van Buuren S. Call for early prevention: Prevalence rates of overweight among Turkish and Moroccan children in The Netherlands. Eur. J. Public Health. 2015;25:828–833. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckv051. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Statistics Netherlands Lengte en Gewicht van Personen, Ondergewicht en Overgewicht; Vanaf 1981. [(accessed on 10 May 2021)]; Available online: https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/dataset/81565NED/table?fromsta....
    1. Hof M.H., van Dijk A.E., van Eijsden M., Vrijkotte T.G., Zwinderman A.H. Comparison of growth between native and immigrant infants between 0-3 years from the Dutch ABCD cohort. Ann. Hum. Biol. 2011;38:544–555. doi: 10.3109/03014460.2011.576701. - DOI - PubMed