Inmigración y riesgo de sobrepeso y obesidad en niños en edad escolar

Abstract

Introduction: In the recent decades, children overweight have been tripled in our living conditions. Sociocultural factors as parents’ background may become a risk agent. Purpose: To estimate the influence of mother’s background on overweight risk at the age of 6. Procedure: Longitudinal study of Aragonese children population-representative cohort from birth to 6 years old (n= 1,560). Sociocultural and family anthropometric features, type of feed and postnatal growth according to mother’s background were evaluated. High overweight incidence at the age of 6 and the mother’s immigrant background was analyzed after being adjusted by different covariants. Results: 23.4% of the cross section were children of immigrant background mothers. The sociocultural and family anthropometric features, the type of feed and the postnatal growth differed in the immigrant background group (underage mothers, lower smoking habits during pregnancy, greater weight gain during pregnancy, a lower educational level of parents, greater habitat incidence in urban areas and a lower percentage of low birthweight children). The overall incidence of 6 years old overweight was 30.3% (15% overweight and 15.3% obesity): from a 39.4% (18.1% overweight and 21.3% obesity) in the immigrant background group, and from 28.4% (14.4% overweight and 14% obesity) in the Spanish group (p= 0.001; relative risk= 1.63; confidence interval of 95%: 1.21-2.22). Immigrant mother’s background remained as an overweight separate risk factor after adjusting the analysis by the remaining covariants. Conclusions: The overweight incidence in immigrant mothers’ children is higher than those of Spanish mothers’ at the age of 6. This fact may become a separate risk factor for obesity development since childhood.