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Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
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Are dietary patterns stable throughout early and mid-childhood? A birth cohort study

Kate Northstone1, Pauline M Emmett

  • 1Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK. Kate.Northstone@bristol.ac.uk

The British Journal of Nutrition
|April 2, 2008
PubMed

Insights

Childhood dietary patterns, identified using principal component analysis (PCA), show stability from ages 4 to 7. Regular dietary assessments are crucial for understanding long-term health impacts.

Area of Science:

  • Nutritional Epidemiology
  • Child Health Research
  • Statistical Modeling in Nutrition

Background:

  • Dietary patterns in childhood are crucial for long-term health outcomes.
  • Understanding the stability of these patterns is essential for accurate health assessments.
  • The Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood (ALSPAC) provides valuable longitudinal data.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To assess the stability of dietary patterns identified through principal component analysis (PCA) from early to mid-childhood.
  • To determine consistency of dietary patterns across multiple time-points in childhood.
  • To inform the frequency of dietary assessments for accurate health outcome evaluation.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized principal component analysis (PCA) to identify dietary patterns.
  • Collected dietary frequency data from mothers via postal questionnaires at ages 3, 4, 7, and 9 years.
  • Calculated component scores at each time-point for 6177 children with complete data.

Main Results:

  • Three consistent dietary patterns ('processed', 'traditional', 'health conscious') were observed across childhood.
  • Dietary patterns showed high correlations between time-points, with narrowest agreement between ages 4 and 7.
  • Periods of dietary pattern change were noted between ages 3-4 and 7-9 years.

Conclusions:

  • Dietary patterns exhibit reasonable stability in childhood, particularly between ages 4 and 7.
  • Significant shifts in dietary patterns occur during specific developmental periods.
  • Regular dietary monitoring is recommended to accurately assess diet-related health effects throughout childhood.

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