Distribution of body mass index in children with different parental risk: Findings of a family-based cohort study in a West-Asian population

Using quantile regression analysis, the current study, conducted within the framework of the Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study (TLGS) aimed to assess the effects of parental risk clusters on different percentiles of Body Mass Index (BMI) distribution in children. Participants included 2296 school-aged children who had participated in the baseline assessment of the TLGS and were followed for an approximate duration of fifteen years. Parental socio-demographic, behavioral and clinical characteristics were considered to determine risk clusters. Comparing of the high- to the low-risk parental clusters showed that after adjusting for age in boys, BMI was significantly higher at the 75th (1.82, p = 03), 85th (1.78, p = 0.007) and 95th (1.66, p = 0.03) percentiles; and in girls it was significantly higher at the 25th (1.45, p = 0.003), 50th (1.05, p = 0.015), 95th (2.31, p = 0.018) and 97th (2.44, p = 0.006) percentiles in the high risk cluster. Our data indicate that during a long-term follow up, children with a high-risk family are more likely to have higher BMI, compared to their counterparts in low-risk families, a difference observed mainly at the upper percentiles of BMI distribution for both genders and at all ages, findings that should be considered for strategies aimed at preventing childhood obesity and its consequences.