LAUSR

VB Benninge, E Gronowitz, AK Karlsson, L Gelander, G Henriksson, P Friberg, Y Chen Departments of Molecular and Clinical Medicine/Clinical Physiology, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden Departments of Pediatrics, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden Department of Social Analysis, Region Västra Götaland, Gothenburg, Sweden Contact: [email protected] Background Many epidemiologic studies examining association between obesity and psychological well-being have focused on assessing body mass index (BMI) at one point in time, ignoring dynamic changes of BMI over time and diversity in patterns during childhood. We aimed to identify trajectories of BMI in childhood and to examine whether BMI trajectories are associated with psychological well-being and physical health at 13-years of age. Methods A total of 615 adolescents (351 females,13.5 0.4 years) participated in the study. We used questionnaires to measure family socioeconomic status (SES), physical activity, stress, and psychosomatic problems. We measured resting blood pressure (BP) and the number of circulating leukocytes. We collected growth charts from the database of childand school-health care. We applied group-based trajectory modeling (PROC TRAJ) to identify BMI trajectories by using 11 repeated measurements of BMI between ages of 6 months and 13 years. Differences among groups were tested by ANOVA and a Bonferroni corrected-p 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results Three BMI trajectories were identified: 59.6% had nonoverweight BMIs (Low), 34.1% had moderate increasing BMIs (Moderate) and 6.4% had high increasing BMIs (High). Of the adolescents classified into the ‘‘High’’-group, 50% were overweight and 50% were obese. In the ‘‘Moderate’’-group, these values were 25.6% and 0%, respectively. Adolescents in the ‘‘High’’-group experienced higher level of stress and psychosomatic problems, reported lower level of family SES and physical activity, and had higher level of systolic BP and circulating lymphocytes and neutrophils when compared to adolescents in the ‘‘Moderate’’or ‘‘Low’’-group. Conclusions Having a childhood BMI trajectory in overweight/obese range was associated with reduced psychological well-being, low family SES, moderately increased BP and signs of subclinical inflammation, probably consequences of increased stress at 13years of age.