Disparities in Early Transitions to Obesity in Contemporary Multi-Ethnic U.S. Populations

Few studies have examined weight transitions in contemporary multi-ethnic populations spanning early childhood through adulthood despite the ability of such research to inform obesity prevention, control, and disparities reduction. We characterized the ages at which African American, Caucasian, and...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2016-06, Vol.11 (6), p.e0158025-e0158025
Main Authors: Avery, Christy L, Holliday, Katelyn M, Chakladar, Sujatro, Engeda, Joseph C, Hardy, Shakia T, Reis, Jared P, Schreiner, Pamela J, Shay, Christina M, Daviglus, Martha L, Heiss, Gerardo, Lin, Dan Yu, Zeng, Donglin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
African Americans
Age
Aged
Biology and Life Sciences
Black or African American
Body mass
Body mass index
Body size
Body weight
Child
Child, Preschool
Children
Chronic illnesses
Complications and side effects
Control methods
Demographic aspects
Female
Females
Health Status Disparities
Hispanic Americans
Humans
Longitudinal studies
Male
Males
Markov chains
Medical care discrimination
Medicine and Health Sciences
Mexican Americans
Middle Aged
Minority & ethnic groups
Nutrition
Obesity
Obesity - epidemiology
Obesity - ethnology
Overweight
People and Places
Physical Sciences
Population studies
Populations
Prevention
Research and Analysis Methods
Transition probabilities
United States
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Few studies have examined weight transitions in contemporary multi-ethnic populations spanning early childhood through adulthood despite the ability of such research to inform obesity prevention, control, and disparities reduction. We characterized the ages at which African American, Caucasian, and Mexican American populations transitioned to overweight and obesity using contemporary and nationally representative cross-sectional National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data (n = 21,220; aged 2-80 years). Age-, sex-, and race/ethnic-specific one-year net transition probabilities between body mass index-classified normal weight, overweight, and obesity were estimated using calibrated and validated Markov-type models that accommodated complex sampling. At age two, the obesity prevalence ranged from 7.3% in Caucasian males to 16.1% in Mexican American males. For all populations, estimated one-year overweight to obesity net transition probabilities peaked at age two and were highest for Mexican American males and African American females, for whom a net 12.3% (95% CI: 7.6%-17.0%) and 11.9% (95% CI: 8.5%-15.3%) of the overweight populations transitioned to obesity by age three, respectively. However, extrapolation to the 2010 U.S. population demonstrated that Mexican American males were the only population for whom net increases in obesity peaked during early childhood; age-specific net increases in obesity were approximately constant through the second decade of life for African Americans and Mexican American females and peaked at age 20 for Caucasians. African American and Mexican American populations shoulder elevated rates of many obesity-associated chronic diseases and disparities in early transitions to obesity could further increase these inequalities if left unaddressed.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158025