LAUSR

OBJECTIVES During recent decades, China has experienced a rapid growth in economy and also in prevalence of childhood obesity. Given the great importance of adolescence overweight/obesity for future health and given the relative lack of longitudinal studies on adolescent obesity in developing countries, particularly in China, in this study, we aimed to explore the potential growth trajectories of overweight/obesity among Chinese adolescents and to further examine socio-economic status predictors and health consequences of these growth trajectories. STUDY DESIGN This study is a longitudinal study. METHODS The data were from four waves of panel data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016). For the present study, children aged 10 to 12 years from the baseline 2010 sample were selected (N = 1685), among whom 1388 were reinterviewed in 2012, 1172 in 2014, and 941 in 2016. We retained a final sample of 800 who had at least three waves of body mass index (BMI) data (i.e. final N = 800). Generalized growth mixture modeling was used as the major analytical strategy. RESULTS We found three different types of overweight/obesity developmental trajectories for these Chinese adolescents, namely a stably normal class, a decreased risk class, and a chronically overweight/obese class. Moreover, we found that higher family income was associated with a lower probability of getting into the chronically overweight/obese class for urban adolescents but with a higher probability of getting into the same class for rural adolescents. Lastly, the adolescents classified in the chronically overweight/obese group reported significantly lower levels of self-rated health. CONCLUSIONS There were heterogeneous growth trajectories of adolescent overweight/obesity in China. Sustained overweight/obesity during adolescence was predicted by lower family income in urban China but by higher family income in rural China. More targeted and regionalized interventions for childhood overweight/obesity in China should be considered.