Early-life nutritional status and metabolic syndrome: gender-specific associations from a cross-sectional analysis of the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil).

Objective: In the present study we investigated gender-specific associations of low birth weight (LBW) and shorter relative leg length with metabolic syndrome (MetS) after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics and health-related behaviours. We also investigated whether these associations are independent of age at menarche and BMI at 20 years old.

Design: Cross-sectional analysis.