A priori and a posteriori dietary patterns at the age of 1 year and body composition at the age of 6 years: the Generation R Study

• Published in: European journal of epidemiology 2016-08, Vol.31 (8), p.775-783
• Main Authors: Voortman, Trudy, Leermakers, Elisabeth T. M., Franco, Oscar H., Jaddoe, Vincent W. V., Moll, Henriette A., Hofman, Albert, van den Hooven, Edith H., Jong, Jessica Kiefte-de
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Absorptiometry, Photon; Beverages; Body Composition; Body fat; Body Mass Index; Cardiology; Child; Children; Children & youth; Cohort Studies; Diet; Diet - methods; Diet - statistics & numerical data; Epidemiology; Feeding Behavior; Female; Food intake; Generations; Grain; Grains; Humans; Infant; Infectious Diseases; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Netherlands; Nutritional adequacy; Obesity; Oncology; PEDIATRIC EPIDEMIOLOGY; Principal Component Analysis; Public Health; Surveys and Questionnaires; Vegetable oils; Vegetables
• ISSN: 0393-2990; 1573-7284
• DOI: 10.1007/s10654-016-0179-x

Dietary patterns have been linked to obesity in adults, however, not much is known about this association in early childhood. We examined associations of different types of dietary patterns in 1-year-old children with body composition at school age in 2026 children participating in a population-based cohort study. Dietary intake at the age of 1 year was assessed with a food-frequency questionnaire. At the children's age of 6 years we measured their body composition with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and we calculated body mass index, fat mass index (FMI), and fat-free mass index (FFMI). Three dietary pattern approaches were used: (1) An a priori-defined diet quality score; (2) dietary patterns based on variation in food intake, derived from principal-component-analysis (PCA); and (3) dietary patterns based on variations in FMI and FFMI, derived with reduced-rank-regression (RRR). Both the a priori-defined diet score and a 'Health-conscious' PCA-pattern were characterized by a high intake of fruit, vegetables, grains, and vegetable oils, and, after adjustment for confounders, children with higher adherence to these patterns had a higher FFMI at 6 years [0.19 SD (95 % CI 0.08;0.30) per SD increase in diet score], but had no different FMI. One of the two RRR-patterns was also positively associated with FFMI and was characterized by intake of whole grains, pasta and rice, and vegetable oils. Our results suggest that different a priori- and a posteriori-derived health-conscious dietary patterns in early childhood are associated with a higher fat-free mass, but not with fat mass, in later childhood.