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. 2023 Jan 18;67(1):101-110.
doi: 10.20945/2359-3997000000516. Epub 2022 Sep 20.

Parental body mass index and maternal gestational weight gain associations with offspring body composition in young women from the Nutritionists' Health Study

Renata Germano Borges de Oliveira Nascimento Freitas  1   2 , Ana Carolina Junqueira Vasques  2   3 , Francieli Barreiro Ribeiro  2   3 , Isabela Solar  2   3 , Alfredo Shigueo Hanada  2   3 , Marina Gomes Barbosa  3 , Angélica Marques Martins Valente  1 , Bianca de Almeida Pititto  4 , Ilana Eshriqui  1   5 , Tito Lívio da Cunha Lopes  6 , Bruno Geloneze  2   7 , Sandra Roberta Gouvea Ferreira  8
Affiliations

Parental body mass index and maternal gestational weight gain associations with offspring body composition in young women from the Nutritionists' Health Study

Renata Germano Borges de Oliveira Nascimento Freitas et al. Arch Endocrinol Metab. .

Abstract

Objective: Intrauterine environment can induce fetal metabolic programming that predisposes to adiposity-related chronic diseases in its lifespan. We examined the associations of parental nutritional status and gestational weight gain with offspring body composition in early adulthood.

Methods: This is cross-sectional analysis of female participants of the NutriHS who were submitted to questionnaires, clinical examinations and body composition assessed by DXA. Association of preconception parental BMI and maternal gestational weight gain (exposures) with body composition measurements (outcomes) were analyzed using multiple linear models adjusted for Directed Acyclic Graphs-based covariables (maternal and paternal educational level, maternal age, and tobacco, alcohol and/or drugs use). The sample included 124 women (median 28 (24-31) years) with a mean BMI of 25.4 ± 4.7 kg/m2.

Results: No association between previous paternal BMI and offspring's body composition was detected. In the fully adjusted linear regression model, maternal BMI was associated with offspring's total lean mass (β = 0.66, p = 0.001), appendicular skeletal muscle mass index (ASMI) (β = 0.11, p = 0.003) and fat mass index (FMI) (β = 0.03, p = 0.039). Gestational weight gain was associated with increased offspring's BMI (OR 1.12 [95% CI 1.02-1.20], p = 0.01). The linear regression model adjusted for maternal age and maternal and paternal education levels showed associations of gestational weight gain with offspring's ASMI (β = 0.42, p = 0.046), FMI (β = 0.22, p = 0.005) and android-to-gynoid fat ratio (β = 0.09, p = 0.035).

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that preconception maternal BMI could influence lean mass and general adiposity of young adult female offspring and that gestational weight gain could be useful for predicting centrally distributed adiposity.

Keywords: DOHaD; body composition; gestational weight gain; obesity; parental BMI.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure: no potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

Figures

Supplementary Figure 1
Supplementary Figure 1. Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) for the association between previous parental body mass indexes and gestational weight gain with body composition. Minimal sufficient adjustment set included maternal education, maternal age, paternal education and maternal use of tobacco, alcohol and/or drugs. BMI: body mass index; (>) exposure; (I) outcome.
Supplementary Figure 2
Supplementary Figure 2. Scatter plots showing correlations of measurements of body composition of the NutriHS participants and preconception maternal body mass index (A) and gestational weight gain (B)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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