Regional variation in lifestyle patterns and BMI in young children: the GECKO Drenthe cohort

Abstract

Abstract Background A better understanding of lifestyle behaviours of children 0.05). In contrast, children who adhered to the ‘low screen time, high sleep and healthy diet’ pattern had lower odds to become overweight and a lower zBMI at 10–11 years (odds ratio [95% CI] = 0.766 [0.65; 0.90]). These findings remained similar after taking SES into account. Regarding the spatial analyses, we found spatial clustering of zBMI, but no spatial clustering of the lifestyle patterns. Conclusions Low screen time, high sleep duration and a healthy diet cluster into a pattern that seems favourable in the prevention of childhood overweight, independent of individual SES. The spatial analyses suggest that there are likely other neighbourhood factors that contribute to the spatial clustering of childhood overweight.

Keywords

• Childhood obesity
• Diet
• Sleep
• Screen time
• Physical activity
• Sedentary time