Developmental Trajectories of Adolescent Overweight/Obesity in China: SES Correlates and Health Consequences

Abstract Background: During recent decades, China has experienced rapid growth in economy and also in prevalence of childhood obesity. Given the great importance of adolescence overweight/obesity for future health, and given the relative lack of longitudinal studies on adolescent obesity in developing countries, particularly in China, in current study, we aimed to explore the potential growth trajectories of overweight/obesity among Chinese adolescents and to further examine socioeconomic status predictors and health consequences of these growth trajectories. Methods: The data were from four waves of panel data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016). For the current study, children aged 10 to 12 from the baseline 2010 sample were selected (N = 1685), among whom 1388 were re-interviewed in 2012, 1172 in 2014, and 941 in 2016. We retained a final sample of 800 who had at least three waves of BMI data (i.e. final N = 800). Generalized growth mixture modeling (GGMM) was used as the major analytical strategy. Results: We found that three types of overweight/obesity developmental trajectories may exist for those Chinese adolescents including a stably normal class, a decreased risk class, and a chronically overweight/obese class. Additionally, we found that higher family income was associated with a lower probability of getting into the chronically overweight/obese class for urban adolescents, but with a higher probability of getting into the same class for rural adolescents. Finally, we found that the adolescents in the chronically overweight/obese group reported significantly lower levels of self-rated health. Conclusions: There were heterogeneous growth trajectories of Chinese adolescent overweight/obesity. Sustained overweight/obesity during adolescence was predicted by lower family income in urban China but by higher family income in rural China. More targeted and regionalized interventions for children’s overweight/obesity in China should be considered. Keywords: China; adolescent overweight/obesity trajectories; SES; self-rated health; CFPS