Maternal Preconception Body Mass Index and Early Childhood Nutritional Risk

Abstract

Background Risk factors for problematic child eating behaviors and food preferences are thought to begin during the preconception period. It is unknown if maternal preconception body mass index (BMI) is associated with child nutritional risk factors (eg, poor dietary intake and eating behaviors).

Objectives We aimed to determine whether maternal preconception BMI was associated with child nutritional risk.

Methods In this longitudinal cohort study, a secondary data analysis of children ages 18 mo to 5 y were recruited from The Applied Research Group for Kids (TARGet Kids!), a primary care practice-based research network in Canada. The primary exposure was maternal preconception BMI. The primary outcome was parent-reported child nutritional risk score, measured using the Nutrition Screening for Every Preschooler/Toddler (NutriSTEP), an age-appropriate validated questionnaire. Fitted linear mixed effects models analyzed associations between maternal preconception BMI and child nutritional risk after adjusting for covariates.

Results This study included 4733 children with 8611 repeated NutriSTEP observations obtained between ages 18 mo to 5 y. The mean (standard deviation [SD]) maternal preconception BMI was 23.6 (4.4), where 73.1% of mothers had a BMI ≤24.9 kg/m2, and 26.9% had a BMI ≥25 kg/m2. The mean (SD) NutriSTEP total score was 13.5 (6.2), with 86.6% at low risk (score <21) and 13.4% at high risk (score ≥21). Each 1 unit increase in maternal preconception BMI was associated with a 0.09 increase in NutriSTEP total score (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.05, 0.12; P ≤ 0.001). After stratification, each 1 unit increase in maternal BMI was associated with a 0.06 increase in mean NutriSTEP total score (95% CI: 0.007, 0.11; P = 0.025) in toddlers and 0.11 increase in mean NutriSTEP total score (95% CI: 0.07, 0.15; P < 0.001) in preschoolers.

Conclusion Higher maternal preconception BMI is associated with slightly higher NutriSTEP total scores. This provides evidence that the preconception period may be an important time to focus on for improving childhood nutrition.

Description

Keywords

Citation

Braddon, Kate E., Charles DG Keown-Stoneman, Cindy-Lee Dennis, Xuedi Li, Jonathon L. Maguire, Deborah L. O’Connor, Jessica A. Omand, Janis Randall Simpson, and Catherine S. Birken. "Maternal preconception BMI and early childhood nutritional risk." The Journal of Nutrition (2023).

DOI

10.1016/j.tjnut.2023.06.022

ISSN

00223166

Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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