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Updated: Sep 23, 2026
Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
Published on: February 2, 2017
Patterns of Children's Weight Change During Family-Based Weight Management Intervention and Associations With Outcome
Brian E Saelens1,2, Maya G Rowland1, Muna A Ibrahim1
1Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Introduction:
Understanding within-treatment weight change patterns may inform strategies to improve long-term outcomes for children with overweight/obesity.
Methods:
Latent class modelling was applied to weekly weight change among 294 7-11-year-old children with overweight/obesity in behavioural weight management trials. Class differences in BMI z-score change through 1 year after treatment were examined using strict class assignment among completers (ANCOVA) or accounting for uncertainty in class assignment and missingness (Bolck, Croon and Hagenaars or BCH method).
Results:
Three classes emerged-larger loss to stable weight (6% of children), consistent modest weight loss (43%) and moderate to decreasing weight loss (51%). During follow-up, the consistent modest weight loss class showed minimal change in BMI z-score whereas the other two classes increased (difference with moderate to decreasing weight loss class in ANCOVA = -0.096, p = 0.05; difference with large loss to stable class in BCH = -0.144, p = 0.017). The consistent modest weight loss class had the most favourable change from baseline through follow-up, better than the larger loss to stable weight class (ANCOVA difference = -0.189, p = 0.080; BCH difference = -0.186, p = 0.015).
Conclusion:
Three patterns of within-treatment child weight change emerged, with modest consistent weight loss associated with more favourable distal child outcomes.
