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Both parents' weight may play role in childhood development

Research published in Pediatrics suggests both paternal and maternal obesity is connected to delays in early childhood development, underscoring the need for providing detailed family information when screening for childhood development.

"The previous U.S. studies in this area have focused on the mothers' pre- and post-pregnancy weight," Edwina Yeung, PhD, of the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said in a press release. “Our study is one of the few that also includes information about fathers, and our results suggest that dad's weight also has significant influence on child development."

Yeung and colleagues studied data from 5,034 women who had previously enrolled in a study that explored the impact of fertility treatments on a child’s development. Participants performed several activities with their children, then completed the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) to screen for communication, personal-social functioning, problem-solving ability as well as fine motor and gross motor skills. The children were first tested between 4 and 6 months of age, then six more times before they reached 3 years of age. The weight of both the mothers and the fathers was also collected.

Researchers reported that children whose parents both had a BMI of 35 kg/m² or higher were likely to fail the problem-solving domain (adjusted OR = 2.93; 1.09-7.85). In addition, when compared with normal/underweight mothers (BMI < 25 kg/m²), children of obese mothers (26% with BMI ≥ 30 kg/m²) had increased odds of failing the fine motor domain (aOR = 1.67; CI 1.12-2.47) and this connection was still in effect after additional adjustment for paternal BMI (aOR =1.67; 1.11-2.52). Paternal obesity (29%) was connected to increased risk for failing the personal-social domain (aOR = 1.75; 1.13-2.71), though the risk was attenuated after adjustment for maternal obesity (aOR = 1.71; 1.08-2.70).

“Our finding regarding maternal obesity and fine motor developmental delay agree with results from other cohorts, which evaluated children’s development at a younger age,” Yeung and colleagues wrote. “Our [paternal] results cannot be directly compared with previous studies because we evaluated different domains of development by using the ASQ, a validated screening rather than diagnostic tool. Nevertheless, our findings provide suggestive evidence for a differential role of paternal obesity on the personal social domain, attributes close to those evidenced in [autism spectrum disorder].” – by Janel Miller

Disclosures: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.