Associations between growth in infancy and obesity risk in UK pre-school children participating in the Optigrow infant feeding study

摘要

Background: Obesity is established early in life. In the UK, more than 1 in 5 children have overweight or obesity when they begin school(1) . Associations between rapid weight gain and increased risk of later obesity have been widely reported, as reviewed most recently by Zheng, (2018). Precise periods during infancy, when rapid weight gain has the greatest influence on later obesity risk are unknown, as previous studies were not designed to investigate this. The identification of such periods would inform when best to intervene to help prevent obesity. The aim of this study was to investigate associations between growth in infancy and obesity risk in pre-school age children (2-5 years).