High-risk Growth Trajectory Related to Childhood Overweight/Obesity and Its Predictive Model at Birth

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Endocrinology
• Metabolomics
• Public Health

Background:

• Childhood obesity is a growing public health concern, increasing the risk of chronic diseases in adulthood.
• Early identification of children at risk for developing overweight or obesity is crucial for timely intervention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an early predictive model for growth trajectories associated with childhood overweight/obesity.
• To identify key predictive factors for high-risk growth patterns in early childhood.

Main Methods:

• Prospective cohort study involving the Shanghai Birth Cohort (SBC) and US Collaborative Perinatal Project (CPP).
• Analysis of mother-child pairs with long-term follow-up to track growth trajectories.
• Development of a predictive model using neonatal metabolite profiles (tyrosine, glycine, octenoylcarnitine, stearoylcarnitine), sex, birth weight, and maternal pre-pregnancy BMI.

Main Results:

• A high-risk postnatal growth trajectory, characterized by consistent BMI around the 85th percentile after age 1, was identified and strongly associated with overweight/obesity at age 7 (OR 6.5).
• The predictive model demonstrated strong performance with an AUC of 0.869, sensitivity of 83.3%, and specificity of 81.1% in validation data.
• Growth trajectory shifts, particularly in body mass index (BMI) percentile, were largely established by 1 year of age.

Conclusions:

• Children exhibiting specific postnatal high-risk growth trajectories are significantly more likely to be overweight or obese by age 7.
• Metabolite profiles at birth, when combined with readily available clinical measures, offer a powerful tool for predicting overweight/obesity risk before its clinical manifestation.
• This predictive model enables early identification of at-risk infants, facilitating preventative strategies against childhood obesity.