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Childhood intelligence, educational attainment and adult body mass index: findings from a prospective cohort and within sibling-pairs analysis

Abstract

Background:

The mechanisms underlying the observed association of childhood intelligence with body mass index (BMI) are unclear and few studies of this association have been prospective in design.

Methods:

Prospective study in a birth cohort of 5467 individuals who were born in Aberdeen, Scotland between 1950 and 1956 and who responded to a follow-up survey in 2001. Comparison of associations within sibling pairs of the same family to associations between different families in 643 sibling pairs (1286 individuals) who are participants in the main cohort.

Results:

Childhood intelligence (age 7 years) and educational attainment were both inversely associated with adult BMI (mean age 48 years): the sex- and age-adjusted mean change in adult BMI per s.d. of intelligence was −0.35 kg/m2 (95% CI: −0.49, −0.21 kg/m2) and per unit increase in educational category (seven categories) was −0.28 kg/m2 (95% CI: −0.34, −0.22). On adjustment for education the association between childhood intelligence and adult BMI attenuated to the null (−0.03 kg/m2 (−0.19, 0.13 kg/m2)); other potential confounding or mediating factors had little or only modest effects on this association. The association between education and adult BMI was not affected by adjustment for childhood intelligence or other potential covariates. The within sibling-pair effect of education on adult BMI (−0.06 kg/m2 (95% CI: −0.26, 0.14)) was weaker than the effect between different families (−0.37 kg/m2 (95%CI: −0.58, −0.17)), P-value for difference of within sibling and between family effect=0.03.

Conclusions:

The association of childhood intelligence with adult BMI is attenuated to the null on adjustment for educational attainment, whereas the association of educational attainment with adult BMI appears to be independent of childhood intelligence and other measured covariates. However, our family analyses suggest that fixed family and neighbourhood factors, which are closely matched in siblings of a similar age, explain much of the association between greater educational attainment and lower adult BMI.

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to Raymond Illsley for providing us with the data from the Aberdeen Child Development Survey and for his advice about the study. Graeme Ford played a crucial role in identifying individual cohort members and in helping us initiate the process of revitalisation. Sally Macintyre, Doris Campbell, George Davey Smith, Marion Hall, Bianca De Stavola, Susan Morton, David Batty, David Godden, Diana Kuh, Glyn Lewis and Viveca Östberg collaborated with the authors to revitalise the cohort. Margaret Beveridge assisted Heather Clark in managing the revitalisation. We also thank staff at the ISD (Edinburgh), GRO (Scotland) and NHSCR (Southport) for their substantial contributions and John Lemon who undertook the linkage to the Aberdeen Maternity and Neonatal Databank. Jonathan Sterne (University of Bristol) and John Carlin (University of Melbourne) provided useful statistical advice. Funding: The Aberdeen Children of the 1950s Study was funded as a component project (G0828205) of a Medical Research Council Co-operative Group Life-course and trans-generational influences on disease risk (G9819083). A project on cognition and adult health in the cohort was funded by the Chief Scientists Office, Scottish Executive Health Department. Debbie A Lawlor is funded by a UK Department of Health Career Scientist Award. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily any funding body. Study ethics: The Scottish multi-centre research ethics committee and local research ethics committees plus the Scottish Privacy Advisory Committee approved the revitalisation of the Children of the 1950s cohort. All record linkage was undertaken by Information and Statistics Division (ISD) of the Scottish Office, who provided us with an anonymised data set for analysis.

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Lawlor, D., Clark, H., Davey Smith, G. et al. Childhood intelligence, educational attainment and adult body mass index: findings from a prospective cohort and within sibling-pairs analysis. Int J Obes 30, 1758–1765 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0803330

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