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Food consumption in Porto
National Obervatory for Rheumatic Diseases
 EYE - European Young Epidemiologists
 ISPUP
 ASPHER
 Eurhobop
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Research Finished Projects
Financing Institutions: FCT Ref:FCT/PTDC/SAU-EPI/121532/2010 Principal researcher: Andreia Oliveira Participating Institutions: Instituto de Saúde Pública da Universidade do Porto (ISP/UP);
Unidade de Investigação e Desenvolvimento Cardiovascular (UIDC/FM/UP);
Centro de Investigação em Actividade Física, Saúde e Lazer (CIAFEL/FADE/UP);
Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto (FM/UP);
Start date: 2013-05-01 End date: 2015-04-30 Summary: Obesity is the result of complex interactions between genetic, behavioural and social factors [1]. Although obesity status has been somewhat reduced to a clear and simple unbalance between energy intake and expenditure, important underline mechanisms related with appetite and satiety could exert their influence and regulate, at the long-term, body weight [2]. An early assessment of behavioural traits that confer susceptibility to an obesogenic environment could identify children with high-risk appetite characteristics, who have an increased likelihood of becoming obese in the future [3-6]. This project, using a longitudinal approach, will provide a better understanding of diet-related influences (expressed in different dimensions: food patterns, eating behaviours and early parental feeding practices) on factors related with appetite and body fat in children, from a life-course approach. It could offer insights into tackling the obesogenic environment, and promises to shed light the relationship of diet with childhood obesity. Until now, most studies have approached these dimensions individually without interconnections between them, and most studies on children have a cross-sectional design. This project aims to re-evaluate children enrolled as part of the Generation XXI birth cohort that has included prospectively both mothers and their children since birth (8666 children and their mothers were enrolled during 2005-2006 at five level III maternity units of Porto) until 4 years-old. The re-evaluation of these children at 7 years of age will allow understanding how food habits change from pre-school to school-aged children and influence the dynamics of childhood body fat. The current project has 5 specific objectives to be attained: i) to define dietary patterns at two time frames (4 and 7 years of age), evaluate their stability over time and early determinants (e.g. birth weight, breastfeeding, prepregnancy maternal body mass index); ii) to evaluate if food patterns (dietary patterns and meals’ structure) of 4 year-old children are associated with eating behaviours related with appetite (e.g. satiety responsiveness and food cues responsiveness) at 7 years of age; iii) to understand the effect of parental feeding practices at 4 years (namely a higher parental control over children’s intake) on eating behaviours related with appetite and body fat at 7 years; iv) to estimate the clustering effect of food patterns and physical activity established at 4 years on body fat and metabolic factors, such as insulin, leptin and blood lipids at 7 years; v) to evaluate neonatal determinants (e.g. leptin measured in umbilical cord blood) of adiposity signals (such as leptin and insulin) and body fat at 7 years. We expect to re-evaluate 3000 children with complete information on both food records and body composition at 4 years of age. The availability of prior evaluations of these children brings an important contribution to this project and assures comparability of data and the performance of longitudinal analyses. Different dimensions of food habits will be approached: i) dietary patterns (defined by factor analysis or latent class analysis); ii) structure of meals (number of eating episodes, meal time span and snacking); iii) child eating behaviours (evaluated by 5 sub-scales of the Children’s Eating Behaviour Questionnaire designed to assess aspects of children’s appetite, already validated and adapted to Portuguese children). Body weight and height, waist circumference and body composition (fat mass and free fat mass, obtained by tetrapolar bioimpedance) of 7 year-old children will be also obtained. A fasting venous blood sample will be drawn from all children, after parent’s agreement, to perform measurements of glucose, insulin, leptin and lipids’ profile. The accomplishment of the projects’ aims is, at some extent, guaranteed by a sustained knowledge of researchers on the main topics of this project, as well as by them large experience in methodological aspects related with cohort studies. The project also intends to promote the improvement of human resources on both technical and scientific aspects, supporting the development of post- graduation theses, writing of manuscripts, and presentation of the final results at national and international meetings and to the general public through the lay press. The project will also promote an exchange of ideas with external consultants, recognized as expertises in this area of research, namely with involvement in the network of birth cohorts in Europe.
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