Overweight and obesity from childhood to adulthood: a follow-up of participants in the 1985 Australian Schools Health and Fitness Survey.

Publisher: Australasian Medical Publishing Co Country of Publication: Australia NLM ID: 0400714 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Print ISSN: 0025-729X (Print) Linking ISSN: 0025729X NLM ISO Abbreviation: Med J Aust Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: : Pyrmont, NSW : Australasian Medical Publishing Co.
Original Publication: Sydney : Australasian Medical Pub. Co.

Overweight*; Obesity/*epidemiology; Adolescent ; Adult ; Australia/epidemiology ; Body Height ; Body Mass Index ; Child ; Cohort Studies ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Health Surveys ; Humans ; Male ; Prevalence

Objective: To examine overweight and obesity in Australian children followed through to adulthood.
Design and Participants: A cohort study of 8498 children aged 7-15 years who participated in the 1985 Australian Schools Health and Fitness Survey; of these, 2208 men and 2363 women completed a follow-up questionnaire at age 24-34 years in 2001-2005.
Main Outcome Measures: Height and weight were measured in 1985, and self-reported at follow-up. The accuracy of self-reported data was checked in 1185 participants. Overweight and obesity in childhood were defined according to international standard definitions for body mass index (BMI), and, in adulthood, as a BMI of 25-29.9 and > or =30 kg/m2, respectively, after correcting for self-report error.
Results: In those with baseline and follow-up data, the prevalence of overweight and obesity in childhood was 8.3% and 1.5% in boys and 9.7% and 1.4% in girls, respectively. At follow-up, the prevalence was 40.1% and 13.0% in men and 19.7% and 11.7% in women. The relative risk (RR) of becoming an obese adult was significantly greater for those who had been obese as children compared with those who had been a healthy weight (RR = 4.7; 95% CI, 3.0-7.2 for boys and RR = 9.2; 95% CI, 6.9-12.3 for girls). The proportion of adult obesity attributable to childhood obesity was 6.4% in males and 12.6% in females.
Conclusion: Obesity in childhood was strongly predictive of obesity in early adulthood, but most obese young adults were a healthy weight as children.

Comment in: Med J Aust. 2007 Sep 3;187(5):314; author reply 314-5. (PMID: 17767441)

Date Created: 20070509 Date Completed: 20070619 Latest Revision: 20220408

20221213

10.5694/j.1326-5377.2007.tb00997.x

17484707