High adherence to a mediterranean diet at age 4 reduces overweight, obesity and abdominal obesity incidence in children at the age of 8.

Background/objectives: A higher adherence to a Mediterranean diet has been shown to be protective against obesity in adults, but the evidence is still inconclusive in children at early ages. Our objective was to explore the association between adherence to Mediterranean Diet at the age of 4 and the prevalence of overweight, obesity, and abdominal obesity at 4 years of age, and incidence at the age of 8.

Subjects/methods: We analyzed data from children of the INMA cohort study who attended follow-up visits at age 4 and 8 years (n = 1801 and n = 1527, respectively). Diet was assessed at the age of 4 using a validated food frequency questionnaire. The adherence to MD was evaluated by the relative Mediterranean diet (rMED) score, and categorized as low (0-6), medium (7-10), and high (11-16). Overweight and obesity were defined according to the age-sex specific BMI cutoffs proposed by the International Obesity Task Force, and abdominal obesity as waist circumference >90th percentile. We used Poisson regression models to estimate prevalence ratios at 4 years of age, and Cox regression analysis to estimate hazard ratios (HR) from 4-8 years of age.

Results: In cross-sectional analyses at the age of 4 no association was observed between adherence to MD and overweight, obesity, or abdominal obesity. In longitudinal analyses, a high adherence to MD at age 4 was associated with lower incidence of overweight (HR = 0.38; 95% CI: 0.21-0.67; p = 0.001), obesity (HR = 0.16; 95% CI: 0.05-0.53; p = 0.002), and abdominal obesity (HR = 0.30; 95% CI: 0.12-0.73; p = 0.008) at the age of 8.

Conclusion: This study shows that a high adherence to MD at the age of 4 is associated with a lower risk of developing overweight, obesity, and abdominal obesity at age 8. If these results are confirmed by other studies, MD may be recommended to reduce the incidence of obesity at early ages.