Relative height and weight among children and adolescents of rural southwestern Nigeria

Background: There are few data describing the relative height and weight patterns of children and adolescents in rural Nigeria, despite a prevalence of stunting of over 38% among children younger than 5 years.

Aim: The present study documented the height and weight patterns relative to international standards among children and adolescents aged 5–20 years in rural Nigeria.

Subjects and methods: Children 5–20 years of age were enrolled from two rural villages. Height and weight were measured; body composition was estimated using bioelectrical impedance analysis. z-scores and centiles for height and body mass index were calculated; prevalences of low relative height (i.e.>2 standard deviations below mean for age and sex) and weight by sex and age were estimated.

Results: A total of 623 participants (326 male and 297 female) were enrolled. The mean height-for-age z-score for males younger than 19 years was –2.1 and prevalence of low relative height was 50%. Among females, the mean height-for-age z-score was –1.2 during adolescence; only 15% of adolescent females were of low relative height. Based on BMI-for-age, 37% of the adolescent males and 23% of females were underweight. No children or adolescents were overweight based on BMI-for-age.

Conclusions: Low relative height and underweight occur in a large proportion of children and adolescents in rural Nigeria, with the lowest relative heights and weights occurring in mid-adolescence and among males.     

Relative effect of parental birth weight on infant birth weight at term

The relations between some hereditary and environmental factors and the variation in infant birth weight were estimated by multiple linear regression analyses on a sample of 276 Scandinavian single term pregnancies.
Gestational age explained 10.9%, fetal factors (maternal and paternal birth weights and fetal sex) 7.9%, maternal factors (parity, pre-pregnancy weight and height) 5.5% and external factors (adjusted weight gain and smoking) 5.8% of the variation in infant birth weight.
It is concluded that maternal and paternal birth weights are rather poor predictors of infant birth weight. Together they explain only 5.6% of the variation in infant birth weight at term.     

Body height and weight of children in Novi Sad

BACKGROUND: Height and weight are the most important measures of growth and development and indirect indicators of living conditions. The socio-economic conditions in Serbia have varied drastically. In 1990, a political and economic crisis started causing a rapid fall of standards of living. AIM: The study aimed to determine the height and weight of children aged 3-11 in the periods between 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001 in Novi Sad, Serbia. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: This investigation was carried out in the same primary schools and pre-school institutions. The data included children of Serbian nationality born in Novi Sad whose parents were also born there and had the same socio-economic background. RESULTS: Positive changes in height and weight were recorded in the decades 1971-1981 and 1981-1991, except for the height of 8-year-old children. In the period 1991-2001, an increase in height was observed only at the age of 8 in boys and until the age of 9 in girls. As for weight, an increase was recorded in 9-year-old boys, while in girls it was present at all ages except for the ages of 7 and 10. Considering the period 1971-2001, positive changes in height were recorded from the age of 6 in boys and 5 in girls. The changes in weight were positive at all ages except the age of 5 in boys and after the age of 6 in girls. CONCLUSION: Lower values of height and weight recorded in 2001 are probably due to the changes in living conditions or they indicate that the acceleration reached its peak.     

Body height and weight of children in Novi Sad

Summary.?Background: Height and weight are the most important measures of growth and development and indirect indicators of living conditions. The socio-economic conditions in Serbia have varied drastically. In 1990, a political and economic crisis started causing a rapid fall of standards of living.

Aim: The study aimed to determine the height and weight of children aged 3–11 in the periods between 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001 in Novi Sad, Serbia.

Subjects and methods: This investigation was carried out in the same primary schools and pre-school institutions. The data included children of Serbian nationality born in Novi Sad whose parents were also born there and had the same socio-economic background.

Results: Positive changes in height and weight were recorded in the decades 1971–1981 and 1981–1991, except for the height of 8-year-old children. In the period 1991–2001, an increase in height was observed only at the age of 8 in boys and until the age of 9 in girls. As for weight, an increase was recorded in 9-year-old boys, while in girls it was present at all ages except for the ages of 7 and 10. Considering the period 1971–2001, positive changes in height were recorded from the age of 6 in boys and 5 in girls. The changes in weight were positive at all ages except the age of 5 in boys and after the age of 6 in girls.

Conclusion: Lower values of height and weight recorded in 2001 are probably due to the changes in living conditions or they indicate that the acceleration reached its peak.     

Evidence that parent‐of‐origin affects birth‐weight reductions at high altitude

Hypoxia exerts a profound depressant effect on fetal growth, lowering birth weight, and raising mortality risk. Multigenerational high‐altitude populations are relatively protected from this birth‐weight decline, leading us to hypothesize that genetic factors were involved. We asked if the amount of high‐ versus low‐altitude ancestry influenced birth weight at high altitude and, specifically, whether such influences were affected by parent‐of‐origin effects (i.e., genomic imprinting). Medical records were reviewed from 1,343 consecutive, singleton deliveries in La Paz, Bolivia (3,600 m) of high‐ (Andean) or low‐ (European) altitude ancestry. Parental surnames were used to classify ancestry as Andean, European, Mestizo (“mixed”) or some combination thereof. The effects of population ancestry on birth weight were determined by categorical, conditional linear regression. Babies born at altitude with two Andean parents weighed 252 g more than their European counterparts, with the protective effect being proportional to the amount of Andean parentage and independent of maternal parity, body size, smoking, or socioeconomic status. Paternal compared with maternal transmission raised birth weight 81 g for a given ancestry group. We concluded that indigenous high‐altitude ancestry protected against hypoxia‐associated fetal growth reduction in a dose‐dependent fashion consistent with the involvement of genetic factors. Further, some of the genes involved appeared to be influenced by parent‐of‐origin effects, given that maternal transmission restricted and paternal transmission enhanced fetal growth. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Adult height variants affect birth length and growth rate in children

Previous studies identified 180 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with adult height, explaining ～10% of the variance. The age at which these begin to affect growth is unclear. We modelled the effect of these SNPs on birth length and childhood growth. A total of 7768 participants in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children had data available. Individual growth trajectories from 0 to 10 years were estimated using mixed-effects linear spline models and differences in trajectories by individual SNPs and allelic score were determined. The allelic score was associated with birth length (0.026 cm increase per 'tall' allele, SE = 0.003, P = 1 × 10(-15), equivalent to 0.017 SD). There was little evidence of association between the allelic score and early infancy growth (0-3 months), but there was evidence of association between the allelic score and later growth. This association became stronger with each consecutive growth period, per 'tall' allele per month effects were 0.015 SD (3 months-1 year, SE = 0.004), 0.023 SD (1-3 years, SE = 0.003) and 0.028 SD (3-10 years, SE = 0.003). By age 10, the mean height difference between individuals with ≤170 versus ≥191 'tall' alleles (the top and bottom 10%) was 4.7 cm (0.8 SD), explaining ～5% of the variance. There was evidence of associations with specific growth periods for some SNPs (rs3791675, EFEMP1 and rs6569648, L3MBTL3) and supportive evidence for previously reported age-dependent effects of HHIP and SOCS2 SNPs. SNPs associated with adult height influence birth length and have an increasing effect on growth from late infancy through to late childhood. By age 10, they explain half the height variance (～5%) of that explained in adults (～10%).     

Sex-dependent effect of post-migration adaptation on height and relative lower leg length in Polish youth

Background: Growth in tibia length is considered to be particularly sensitive to environmental stress.

Aim: To estimate the effect of parental migration status on the relative length of the tibia in their school-age children.

Subjects and methods: Data included a nationwide random sample of 17,155 schoolchildren, 7–18?years of age, examined between 1966 and 1969 in Poland who provided information on anthropometric measurements and demographic and social characteristics. Parental migration status was based on paternal migration history. After standardisation by LMS method, z-scores of relative tibia length and z-scores of height were used for analysis. Three-way ANOVA was used to evaluate the influence of migration on tibia length-to-height ratio.

Results: Sons of migrants have a significantly higher tibia length-to-height ratio compared to sons of non-migrants. Children of non-migrants were taller than children of migrants among boys in medium SES and among girls in high and low SES. Relative tibia length indicated significant effects of migration among boys in all age categories and in late adolescent girls: sons of migrants had a higher ratio and daughters of migrants had a lower tibia length-to-height ratio.

Conclusion: It is possible that migration experiences of the parents may have influenced the growth of their offspring. The results emphasise the potential importance of research addressing the impact of different types of migration on growth of children.     

Understanding language and cognitive deficits in very low birth weight children

Very-low-birth-weight infants are at much higher risk for cognitive and language delays but the nature of such deficits is not clearly understood. Given increasing rates of prematurity and infants born very-low-birth-weight, examination of mechanisms that underlie poorer developmental outcome is essential. We investigated language and cognitive abilities in very-low and normal birth-weight infants to determine whether performance differences were due to poorer global cognitive performance or to deficits in specific processing abilities. Thirty-two very-low and 32 normal birth-weight infants received visual and auditory-visual habituation recognition-memory tasks, and standardized language and cognitive assessments. Very-low-birth-weight infants performed more poorly on visual and auditory-visual habituation tasks and scored lower than controls on cognitive and language measures. These findings suggest that differences in language abilities in very-low-birth-weight children may be part of a global deficit that impacts many areas of cognitive functioning rather than a specific impairment in rapid auditory processing.     

广西农村壮族66798例新生儿出生体重分析

目的研究农村壮族新生儿出生体重与胎儿性别、胎龄、孕母年龄的关系,为农村壮族孕产期保健和儿童保健提供基础资料。方法回顾性分析农村住院分娩的66798例壮族新生儿出生体重及其相关因素。结果壮族新生儿出生体重平均值五年无变化（P〉0.05）,平均值为（3.00±0.41）kg,其中五年间壮族男婴平均出生体重大于壮族女婴（P〈0.05）;出生体重随胎龄增长而增加,早产儿组平均体重只有（2.32±0.44）kg;孕母的年龄〈20岁的新生儿出生平均体重低于其他组。结论进一步研究广西农村壮族新生儿出生体重的影响因素,减少早育和早产,提高农村壮族地区孕产期保健和儿童保健工作质量,是广西＂十一五＂期间乃至更长时间孕产期保健和儿童保健工作的重点。     

The effect of zygosity on the birth weight of twins

Birth weight has been analysed in a series of 528 unselected, newborn twins pairs of known zygosity, in relation to sex, placentation, duration of gestation, maternal age and parity. Monozygotic twins weigh less than dizygotic twins, even when the named variables are allowed for. Possible reasons for this are discussed.