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
. 2025 Jan 7;28(1):e20.
doi: 10.1017/S1368980024002647.

The relationship between maternal age, obesity and child mortality: a cross-sectional study using 2013-2014 Demographic and Health Survey in Democratic Republic of the Congo at national, and sub-national levels

Zacharie Tsala Dimbuene  1 , Raphaël Muanza Nzuzi  2 , Severin Mabanza Matondo  1
Affiliations

The relationship between maternal age, obesity and child mortality: a cross-sectional study using 2013-2014 Demographic and Health Survey in Democratic Republic of the Congo at national, and sub-national levels

Zacharie Tsala Dimbuene et al. Public Health Nutr. .

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the relationship between maternal age and nutritional status, and test associations between maternal nutritional status and child mortality with a focus on maternal obesity.

Design: Secondary analysis of data from nationally representative cross-sectional sample of women of reproductive ages (15-49 years) and their children under 5 years. The outcome variable for maternal nutritional status was BMI, classified into underweight (BMI < 18·50 kg/m2), normal weight (18·50-24·99 kg/m2), overweight (25·0-29·9 kg/m2) and obesity (>=30·0 kg/m2). Child mortality was captured with five binary variables measuring the risk of dying in specific age intervals (neonatal, post-neonatal, infant, childhood and under-five mortality).

Setting: The most recent Demographic and Health Surveys from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Participants: The final samples consisted of 7892 women of reproductive ages (15-49 years) and 19 003 children aged 0-59 months.

Results: The prevalence of obesity was estimated at 3·4 %; it increased with maternal age. Furthermore, obesity unevenly affected provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Kinshasa, South Kivu, North Kivu and Maniema were most affected. Finally, maternal obesity showed mixed effects on child mortality.

Conclusion: The prevalence of obesity is still low; however, provinces are unevenly affected. Therefore, interventions and programmes to improve nutrition should incorporate geographical disparities to tackle adverse child outcomes associated with maternal obesity, to limit negative consequences of maternal obesity, including non-communicable diseases which might be a strong impediment to reach Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2 and 3.

Keywords: Child health; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Maternal obesity; Mortality.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Selection of the final sample.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Predicted probabilities of women’s nutritional status at national and sub-national levels in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Predicted probabilities of women’s nutritional status in the Democratic Republic of Congo, by place of residence and household poverty levels.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Associations between women’s nutritional status and child mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Pedersen MM, Ekstrøm CT & Sørensen TIA (2023) Emergence of the obesity epidemic preceding the presumed obesogenic transformation of the society. Sci Adv 9, eadg6237. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Al-Worafi YM, Ming LC, Dhabali AA et al. (2023) Obesity in Developing Countries. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
    1. Boutari C & Mantzoros CS (2022) A 2022 update on the epidemiology of obesity and a call to action: as its twin COVID-19 pandemic appears to be receding, the obesity and dysmetabolism pandemic continues to rage on. Metab Clin Exp 133, 155217. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Friedrich MJ (2002) Epidemic of obesity expands its spread to developing countries. JAMA 287, 1382–1386. - PubMed
    1. Ng M, Fleming T, Robinson M et al. (2014) Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 19802013: a systematic analysis for the global burden of disease study 2013. Lancet 384, 766–781. - PMC - PubMed