Shaping childhood obesity: behavioral and environmental risk factors associated with body mass index trajectories between 2 and 9 years in Samoan children.

Background/objective: Pacific children are at high obesity risk, yet the behavioral and environmental factors that contribute to obesity development in this setting remain poorly understood. We assessed associations between childhood risk factors for obesity with body mass index (BMI) trajectories between ages 2-9 years in Samoa.

Subjects/methods: In a prospective cohort of 485 children from 'Upolu, we measured weight and height at ages 2-4 (2015), 3.