The relationship between birth weight, infant nutrition and family socioeconomic conditions on overweight and obesity in children under 6 years old in East Azerbaijan

Abstract

Although the positive relationship between breastfeeding and normal body mass index has been observed in some studies, different and sometimes contradictory results have been reported. The importance of examining the issue in childhood to prevent diseases and problems arising in later life on the one hand and on the other hand contradictory results in the field of low and high birth weight and its impact on childhood obesity and also due to a significant reduction Exclusive breastfeeding in our country to less than one third in infants under 6 months and the lack of sufficient studies on the relationship between breastfeeding and normal BMI in preschool children in our country, the need for such a study. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective observational study that was conducted during the six months ending March 2014 with the participation of 250 children referring to health centers in Tabriz and observing the entry / exit criteria. In this study, multi-stage sampling method was used to sample children from three to six years old and demographic information, body mass index (child, mother and father) and nutritional status of children during lactation were measured. Finally, the collected data were compared with descriptive and inferential statistics tests. Results: The results showed that 20 children in the case group and 15 children in the control group did not have breastfeeding at all (P = 0.025). In the interval between breastfeeding between case and control groups, the results were significantly in favor of the control group; So that in the children of the case group, breastfeeding was significantly higher than the case group (P = 0.025). Complementary feeding in the first six months of life in children in the case group was non-significantly higher than children in the control group (P = 0.055). The age of onset of complementary feeding in children of the case group was significantly lower than the control group (P = 0.044); The results also showed that children with high weight in the case group were non-significantly higher than the control group (P = 0.079).