Abstract
Background: Rapid gains in adiposity may have more adverse health implications in later life compared with having stable adiposity throughout childhood and adolescence. A knowledge gap concerns concomitant health behaviors contributing to adiposity gain among adolescents. Objectives: We investigated the associations of health behaviors relating to dietary habits, sleep, physical activity (PA), and screen time with an increase in body mass index z-score (BMIz) and waist–height ratio (WHtR) during adolescence. Methods: We included 4,785 adolescents (53% of girls) aged 11.1 (SD 0.8) years at baseline and followed them for 3 years. We clustered them into decreased, stable, and increased BMIz and WHtR categories using the K-means clustering method. Using Cox regression, we computed hazard ratios (HR) with 95% CI for the associations of self-reported health behaviors (dietary habits, physical activity, sleep midpoint, and sedentary digital media use) with belonging to an increased BMIz or WHtR group. In a subsample (n = 3,840), we ran a sensitivity analysis considering puberty status as an additional covariate. Results: Later sleep midpoint (having later midpoint of sleep between bedtime and waking time) and irregular meal pattern (not eating lunch and dinner every school day) predicted increased BMIz (HR 1.26 [95% CI 1.13–1.41] and 1.23 [1.08–1.39], respectively) and WHtR (1.23 [1.09–1.39] and 1.18 [1.02–1.36], respectively) over the follow-up period, after adjusting for other health behaviors. Associations remained after considering puberty status as a covariate. Conclusions: Early bedtime with adequate sleep duration and regular meal pattern should be encouraged to prevent adiposity gain during early adolescence.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 1321024 |
Journal | Frontiers in pediatrics |
Volume | 12 |
Number of pages | 12 |
ISSN | 2296-2360 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 15 Nov 2024 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:2024 Lommi, Engberg, Lehtimäki, Lehto and Viljakainen.
Fields of Science
- diet
- exercise
- night
- obesity
- screen time
- youth
- 3123 Gynaecology and paediatrics