Behavioral Determinants and Consequences of Childhood Adiposity: Epidemiological studies in high-income populations

The aim of this thesis was to examine the relationship of parental- and child behaviors with the development of adiposity and cardiometabolic health in children, and to provide more insight in the direction of the associations by using data of prospective population-based studies in high-income populations. Most studies described in this thesis were embedded in The Generation R Study, a prospective population-based cohort study situated in Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Prospective associations between early childhood parental feeding practices and eating disorder symptoms and disordered eating behaviors in adolescence

Objective Nonresponsive parental feeding practices are associated with poorer appetite self-regulation in children. It is unknown whether this relationship extends beyond childhood to be prospectively associated with the onset of eating disorder (ED) symptoms in adolescence. This exploratory study therefore investigated prospective associations between early childhood parental feeding practices and adolescent ED symptoms and disordered eating behaviors. Methods Data were from two population-based cohorts with harmonized measures: Generation R (Netherlands; n = 4900) and Gemini (UK; n = 2094). Parents self-reported their pressure to eat, restriction and instrumental feeding (i.e., using food as a reward) at child age 4–5 years. Adolescents self-reported their compensatory behaviors (e.g., fasting, purging), binge-eating symptoms, restrained eating, uncontrolled eating, and emotional eating at 12–14 years. Associations between feeding practices and ED symptoms were examined separately in each cohort using generalized linear models. Results In Gemini, pressure to eat in early childhood was associated with adolescents engaging in compensatory behaviors. In Generation R, parental restriction was associated with adolescents engaging in compensatory behaviors, restrained eating, uncontrolled eating, and emotional eating. Instrumental feeding was associated with uncontrolled eating and emotional eating in Generation R. Discussion Nonresponsive parental feeding practices were associated with a greater frequency of specific ED symptoms and disordered eating in adolescence, although effect sizes were small and findings were inconsistent between cohorts. Potentially, the cultural and developmental context in which child–parent feeding interactions occur is important for ED symptoms. Further replication studies are required to better understand parents' role in the development and maintenance of ED-related symptoms. Public Significance Prospective research examining how early childhood parental feeding practices might contribute to adolescent ED symptoms is limited. In two population-based cohorts, nonresponsive feeding practices (restriction, instrumental feeding, pressure to eat) predicted increased frequency of some ED symptoms and disordered eating behaviors in adolescence, although associations were small and further replication is required. Findings support the promotion of responsive feeding practices, which may benefit young children's developing relationship with food

Associations of physical activity and screen time with white matter microstructure in children from the general population

Physical activity and sedentary behaviors have been linked to a variety of general health benefits and problems. However, few studies have examined how physical activity during childhood is related to brain development, with the majority of work to date focusing on cardio-metabolic health. This study examines the association between physical activity and screen time with white matter microstructure in the general pediatric population. In a sample of 2532 children (10.12 ± 0.58 years; 50.04% boys) from the Generation R Study, a population-based cohort in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, we assessed physical activity and screen time using parent-reported questionnaires. Magnetic resonance imaging of white matter microstructure was conducted using diffusion tensor imaging. Total physical activity was positively associated with global fractional anisotropy (β = 0.057, 95% CI = 0.016, 0.098, p = 0.007) and negatively associated with global mean diffusivity (β = −0.079, 95% CI = −0.120, −0.038, p 0.05). This study provides new evidence that physical activity is modestly associated with white matter microstructure in children. In contrast, complementing other recent evidence on cognition, screen time was not associated with white matter microstructure. Causal inferences from these modest associations must be interpreted cautiously in the absence of longitudinal data. However, these data still offer a promising avenue for future work to explore to what extent physical activity may promote healthy white matter development

Sleep characteristics across the lifespan in 1.1 million people from the Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States: a systematic review and meta-analysis

How long does the average person sleep? Here, Kocevska et al. conducted a meta-analysis including over 1.1 million people to produce age- and sex-specific population reference charts for sleep duration and efficiency.We aimed to obtain reliable reference charts for sleep duration, estimate the prevalence of sleep complaints across the lifespan and identify risk indicators of poor sleep. Studies were identified through systematic literature search in Embase, Medline and Web of Science (9 August 2019) and through personal contacts. Eligible studies had to be published between 2000 and 2017 with data on sleep assessed with questionnaires including >= 100 participants from the general population. We assembled individual participant data from 200,358 people (aged 1-100 years, 55% female) from 36 studies from the Netherlands, 471,759 people (40-69 years, 55.5% female) from the United Kingdom and 409,617 people (>= 18 years, 55.8% female) from the United States. One in four people slept less than age-specific recommendations, but only 5.8% slept outside of the 'acceptable' sleep duration. Among teenagers, 51.5% reported total sleep times (TST) of less than the recommended 8-10 h and 18% report daytime sleepiness. In adults (>= 18 years), poor sleep quality (13.3%) and insomnia symptoms (9.6-19.4%) were more prevalent than short sleep duration (6.5% with TST = 9 h in bed, whereas poor sleep quality was more frequent in those spending = 41 years) reported sleeping shorter times or slightly less efficiently than men, whereas with actigraphy they were estimated to sleep longer and more efficiently than man. This study provides age- and sex-specific population reference charts for sleep duration and efficiency which can help guide personalized advice on sleep length and preventive practices.Pathophysiology, epidemiology and therapy of agein

Celiac Disease Autoimmunity and Emotional and Behavioral Problems in Childhood

Public Health and primary carePrevention, Population and Disease management (PrePoD

The experience of life events and body composition in middle childhood

While studies suggest potential influences of childhood adversities on obesity development in adulthood, less is known about the short-term association in children. We examined the association between a wide range of life events experienced in the first ten years of life (including maltreatment and milder adversities) and body composition in 5333 ten-year old Dutch children. In structured interviews, mothers retrospectively reported on their children’s experience of 24 events. BMI was calculated, and fat mass index and fat free mass index were determined by dual-x-ray absorptiometry scanning. Linear regressions showed that, unadjusted, a higher number of life events was associated with higher BMI and body composition. However, associations attenuated to non-significance after adjustment for covariates. Similar findings were observed for maltreatment and milder life events. Thus, the number of experienced life events was not associated with body composition in middle childhood. Rather, other factors, like socioeconomic conditions, accounted for the relationship between life events and weight development in children.</p

The association between overweight and internalizing and externalizing behavior in early childhood

Development Psychopathology in context: famil

Associations of parents' use of food as reward with children'seating behaviour and BMI in a population-based cohort.

Background: Parents' use of food as reward has been linked to children's dietary intake, but the association with children's eating behaviour and overweigh

Apoptosis evaluation in B cell lines treated with kinase inhibitors.

<p>Cells were treated with PP2 (8 µM), compound 5 (0.05 µM for LCL-WT, LCL-flag-LMP1 and DG75 or 1 µM for BL41-B95-8 and BL41), CI-1040 (4 µM) or PD 198306 (4 µM) for 72 hours and the apoptotic index was assessed by Annexin V - PI staining. The percentage of early apoptotic (AnnexinV+PI-) LCL-WT (A), LCL-flag-LMP1 (B), DG75 (C), BL41-B95-8 (D) or BL41 (E) cells treated with the indicated kinase inhibitor (black column) or left untreated (white column) is shown. Results are the means ± SEM from at least three independent experiments. Statistical analysis was performed using Student's <i>t</i> test. Statistically significant differences (p<0.05) between treated and untreated cells are shown by *.</p