Maternal pre-pregnancy weight and early childhood weight associated with obesity in adolescence

Excess weight at age 3 years was associated with a higher risk of being overweight or obese at age 15 years in a study of adolescents in Japan.

In the Pediatric Obesity study of 1,581 mother-child pairs, pre-pregnancy overweight/obesity in mothers was also a strong predictor of overweight/obesity at age 15 years in children.

After adjustments, being overweight or obese at age 3 years was linked with a more than 4.2-times higher risk of overweight/obesity at age 15 years, and overweight/obesity in mothers was linked with a more than 2.4-times higher risk. Investigators did not find an association between birth weight and overweight/obesity during adolescence.

Because family members often share a common lifestyle, interventions for parents and children may be necessary to prevent obesity in adolescents."

Satomi Yoshida, PhD, first author, Kyoto University