Association Between Fetal Exposure to Famine and Anthropometric Measures in Adulthood: A Regression Discontinuity...

The aim of this study was to investigate the differences in six anthropometric measurements of people born during and immediately after the 1959 to 1961 Great Chinese Famine using a regression discontinuity approach.

Data were drawn from the baseline of the China Kadoorie Biobank study, and a subset of data from 76,912 participants was analyzed. We performed regression discontinuity among participants who were born during the famine (October 1959 to October 1962) and immediately after the famine period (November 1962 to October 1964) by using local linear and parametric regressions. All analyses were conducted by sex and study area.

Significantly, there were increases of 0.30 kg/m² (P = 0.007) in BMI, 0.81 kg (P = 0.028) in weight, 8.57 mm (P = 0.004) in waist circumference, and 5.07 mm (P = 0.004) in hip circumference for rural women who were exposed to famine during their fetal period compared with those who were not exposed to famine in utero. However, such statistically significant increases in anthropometric values were not observed in local linear regression and most parametric models among rural men or in the urban population.

Rural Chinese women who were exposed to famine during the fetal period were observed to have higher levels of BMI, weight, waist circumference, and hip circumference in adulthood.