Gurasoen gorputz-morfologia eta konposizioaren eta seme-alaben jaiotza-tamainaren arteko asoziazioa Bilboaldeko familietan

Abstract

Birth size, among other factors, is associated with the risk of obesity during growth and in adulthood. Likewise, some parental anthropometric traits have shown to be associated with the size at birth of their children. The objective of this study was to analyse the relationship of parental morphology and adiposity with offspring birth size in a sample of families from Greater Bilbao. The sample consisted of 391 mothers and 274 fathers and their children; 404 sons and 368 daughters for the analysis including mothers, and 280 sons and 252 daughters for the analysis in fathers. Birth related variables included birth weight, birth length, ponderal index, gestational age and birth order. For the parental generation, there is information on body lengths, widths, circumferences, skinfolds, weight, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, trunk-to-extremity skinfold ratio, sum of skinfolds, and the three components of anthropometric somatotype. Linear regression analyses adjusted for different covariates were used to analyse the associations. Several parental anthropometric traits showed positive associations with their children’s birth weight, particularly in mothers, and bone-related anthropometric traits were also positively associated with birth length in both sexes. The observed associations were not explained by children sex, parental age, birth order, or gestational age. In summary, our results showed that body morphology and adiposity in parents are related to birth size in offspring, and thus can have important public health implications in the prevention of obesity.