Adriëtte Oostvogels

Summary In the Netherlands, nearly one in five children has overweight or obesity. Children with overweight have an unhealthier cardiometabolic profile and are at increased risk of adult overweight, diabetes and cardiovascular disease compared to children with normal weight. An important predictor of childhood overweight and cardiometabolic profile is maternal (prepregnancy) body mass index (BMI). Identifying underlying mechanisms in the association between maternal prepregnancy BMI (pBMI) and childhood cardiometabolic profile could be a first step in developing interventions to prevent childhood overweight and later adverse health consequences. Chapter 1 provides a literature overview of influences of maternal characteristics on offspring’s postnatal growth and cardiometabolic profile and introduces the hypotheses studied in this thesis. 1. An adverse cardiometabolic profile at age 5-6 years is the result of prenatal exposure to an atherogenic lipid profile in pregnancy, which in turn is a consequence of maternal overweight before pregnancy. 2. Children with a family history of diabetes on the maternal side of the family are more often overweight and have a more adverse glucose metabolism at age 5-6 years than children with a family history of diabetes on the paternal side of the family. 3. An adverse cardiometabolic profile at age 5-6 years is the result of accelerated postnatal weight, height and BMI gain, which in turn is a consequence of maternal overweight before pregnancy. 4. Children from ethnic minority populations or from low socioeconomic backgrounds have different BMI growth patterns to overweight at age 5-6 years compared with children from European origin and/or from a high socioeconomic background. 5. Girls are more susceptible to the adverse consequences of maternal overweight before pregnancy on growth patterns and cardiometabolic profile at age 5-6 years. The research described in this thesis was conducted within the multi-ethnic prospective Amsterdam Born Children and their Development study (ABCD-study). 246