Childhood obesity among the poor in Peru: Are there implications for cognitive outcomes?

Internet use, dietary habits and adolescent obesity: evidence from China

The widespread use of Internet has substantially influenced adolescents' lifestyles. This paper systematically explored the impact of Internet use on adolescent obesity and unveiled the underlying mechanism in China. We discussed the relationship among Internet use, dietary habits and obesity, and estimated the impact using panel data collected by the China Health and Nutrition Survey. Results indicated that increased Internet use significantly raised the risk of obesity among adolescents by changing their dietary habits. With a longer time of Internet use, adolescents would increase more proportion of snacks, and choose food with higher fat and protein. This paper offers a new empirical evidence for understanding the mechanism of Internet use on adolescent obesity, and provides a reference for developing countries to guide adolescents toward moderate Internet use and lower the risk of obesity.

Impact of Early-Life Weight Status on Cognitive Abilities in Children

OBJECTIVE

Whether obesity is associated with childhood cognition is unknown. Given the sensitivity of the developing brain to environmental factors, this study examined whether early-life weight status was associated with children's cognition.

METHODS

Using data from mother-child pairs enrolled in the Health Outcomes and Measures of the Environment (HOME) Study (2003-2006), children's early-life weight status was assessed using weight-for-length/height standard deviation (SD) scores. A battery of neuropsychological tests was administered to assess cognition, executive function, and visual-spatial abilities at ages 5 and 8 years. Using linear mixed models, associations between early-life weight status and cognition were estimated.

RESULTS

Among 233 children, 167 were lean (≤1 SD) and 48 were nonlean (>1 SD). After covariate adjustment, the results suggest that full-scale intelligence quotient scores decreased with a 1-unit increase in weight-for-height SD score (β = -1.4, 95% CI: -3.0 to 0.1). For individual component scores, with a 1-unit increase in weight-for-height SD score, perceptual reasoning (β = -1.7, 95% CI: -3.3 to 0.0) and working memory (β: -2.4, CI: -4.4 to -0.4) scores decreased. Weight status was generally not associated with other cognition measures.

CONCLUSIONS

Within this cohort of typically developing children, early-life weight status was inversely associated with children's perceptual reasoning and working memory scores and possibly with full-scale intelligent quotient scores.