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Pediatrics

Association between consumption of nonessential energy-dense food and body mass index among Mexican school-aged children: a prospective cohort study

International Journal of Obesity volume 48, pages 1292–1299 (2024)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/objectives

Obesity prevalence in Mexican children has increased rapidly and is among the highest in the world. We aimed to estimate the longitudinal association between nonessential energy-dense food (NEDF) consumption and body mass index (BMI) in school-aged children 5 to 11 years, using a cohort study with 6 years of follow-up.

Subjects/methods

We studied the offspring of women in the Prenatal omega-3 fatty acid supplementation, child growth, and development (POSGRAD) cohort study. NEDF was classified into four main groups: chips and popcorn, sweet bakery products, non-cereal based sweets, and ready-to-eat cereals. We fitted fixed effects models to assess the association between change in NEDF consumption and changes in BMI.

Results

Between 5 and 11 years, children increased their consumption of NEDF by 225 kJ/day (53.9 kcal/day). In fully adjusted models, we found that change in total NEDF was not associated with change in children’s BMI (0.033 kg/m2, [p = 0.246]). However, BMI increased 0.078 kg/m2 for every 418.6 kJ/day (100 kcal/day) of sweet bakery products (p = 0.035) in fully adjusted models. For chips and popcorn, BMI increased 0.208 kg/m2 (p = 0.035), yet, the association was attenuated after adjustment (p = 0.303).

Conclusions

Changes in total NEDF consumption were not associated with changes in BMI in children. However, increases in the consumption of sweet bakery products were associated with BMI gain. NEDF are widely recognized as providing poor nutrition yet, their impact in Mexican children BMI seems to be heterogeneous.

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Data availability

The datasets used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

Primary funding for the study came from the National Institute of Public Health and from National Institutes of Health Grant Number R01DK108148.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Dirección de Nutrición, Vigilancia Epidemiológica, Ciudad de México, México

    Daniel Illescas-Zárate

  2. Tecnologico de Monterrey, Escuela de Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud, Ciudad de México, México

    Daniel Illescas-Zárate

  3. CONACYT – Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Centro de Investigación en Nutrición y Salud, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México

    Carolina Batis

  4. Tufts University, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Boston, MA, USA

    Gitanjali M. Singh & Dariush Mozaffarian

  5. Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Centro de Investigación en Nutrición y Salud, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México

    Ivonne Ramírez-Silva

  6. Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Centro de Investigación en Salud Poblacional, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México

    Albino Barraza-Villarreal, Isabelle Romieu & Tonatiuh Barrientos-Gutiérrez

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  1. Daniel Illescas-Zárate
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Contributions

DI-Z conceived the design research, performed the computations and was the major contributor in writing the manuscript. CB, GMS, DM and TB-G, assisted in the statistical analysis and contributed to writing the manuscript. AB-V, IR-S and IR contributed to the follow-up of the cohort and supervised the cleaning and processing data. IR-S derived the nonessential energy-dense food database. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tonatiuh Barrientos-Gutiérrez.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The protocol was approved by the Ethics, Biosafety, and Research Committees’ of the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico and the Emory University. Parental signed consent and children’s informed consent were obtained at each wave of the study. This investigation conformed to all principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki.

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Illescas-Zárate, D., Batis, C., Singh, G.M. et al. Association between consumption of nonessential energy-dense food and body mass index among Mexican school-aged children: a prospective cohort study. Int J Obes 48, 1292–1299 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-024-01552-0

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