A study found that pregnancy changes like weight gain and obesity are linked to more body fat in South Asian children.
The study, published in JAMA Network Open, identified six modifiable factors associated with adiposity (the condition of having too much fatty tissue in the body).
The study also found that a child, who was breastfed for at least a year, was physically active, had a reduced screen time had lower chances of becoming obese as a child.
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Consuming a healthy diet, including poultry, eggs, fruits, vegetables, seafood and refined grains (such as puri, idli and dosa), during pregnancy was, however, found to be related with reduced adiposity.
“We know that current measures of childhood obesity such as the body mass index (BMI) don’t work well for South Asians because of the so called ‘thin-fat’ phenotype — South Asian newborns are characterized as low birth weight, but proportionally higher body fat or central obesity (a ‘thin-fat’ phenotype) relative to White Europeans, and this pattern persists in fourth generation migrated populations,” said first author Sandi Azab, an assistant professor at the department of medicine, McMaster University.
“This score may be useful in clinical and public health settings to help mitigate childhood obesity in South Asian individuals and beyond,” they added.
