Sibling Composition Impacts Childhood Obesity Risk

Ann Arbor, MI, July 8, 2014 /3BL Media/ – It is well documented that children with obese parents are at greater risk for obesity. In a new study, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, Cornell University, and Duke University looked at how different kinds of family associations affect obesity, specifically how sibling relationships affect a child’s weight. They not only found a correlation between parents and child, but also discovered a link between having an obese sibling and a child’s obesity risk, after adjusting for the parent-child relationship. Their findings are published in the October issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

By surveying adults in 10,244 American households, investigators found that the likelihood of childhood obesity varies with the number of children in a household, as well as their gender. According to the study, in a single child household, a child is 2.2 times more likely to be obese if a parent is also obese.

However, in families with two children, the data showed a stronger relationship with sibling obesity than with parental obesity. Older children in a two-child household with an obese parent are 2.3 times more likely to be obese, but that number jumps to 5.4 times for those with overweight younger siblings. If the child is the younger sibling in a two-child household, parental obesity is not relevant to risk, but having an obese older sibling is associated with a 5.6-fold higher risk.

“The family environment is known to exert a strong influence on the trajectory of children’s health, and prior research has done a great deal to illuminate connections between parent and offspring obesity. Others have also found that obesity is also often correlated between siblings. Our study extends these findings by integrating data on both parent-child, and sibling relationships. We found that obesity status of a younger child’s older sibling is more strongly associated with a child’s obesity than is the parent’s obesity status,” notes lead investigator Mark C. Pachucki, PhD, Mongan Institute for Health Policy, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA. “This association is independent of a host of socioeconomic and demographic attributes, health behaviors, and overall health status.” Dr. Pachucki began this research collaboration when he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and University of California, San Francisco.

The data also uncovered a link between gender and obesity risk. In homes with only one child, girls were less likely to be obese than their male counterparts. Gender was also an important factor for siblings in two-child households. The study suggests that younger children may be particularly susceptible to the influence of an older sibling, especially if that sibling is of the same sex.

“For youngest boys in two-child families, obesity is 11.4 times more likely with a male older sibling,” write the authors. “If that younger boy’s elder sibling is a girl, the boy is 6.6 times more likely to be obese. In two-child families, youngest-girl obesity is 8.6 times more likely with a female older sibling and is not significantly more likely if the older sibling is male. Thus, for younger children, there is a discernible gender correlation in sibling obesity status: having an obese elder same-gender sibling is associated with an increased likelihood of the younger child being obese.”

Of course, exercise and food consumption play key roles in the prevention of obesity, and investigators found that only children were less likely to engage in physical activity and more likely to eat fast food than their counterparts with brothers and sisters. Curiously, however, the data also showed that having a highly active older sibling raised the obesity risk for the younger sibling. “Younger siblings with more vigorous physical activity are significantly less likely to be obese, though having an elder sibling who is extremely active is associated with a higher risk of younger-sibling obesity,” clarifies Dr. Pachucki.

While the authors stress that more within-family obesity research is needed, this new study offers key data that will be beneficial in the fight against childhood obesity. “Because this study is cross-sectional, a snapshot of one point in time, we cannot claim that these particular siblings are causing one another’s weight status. And we were only able to look at one-child and two-child families. Still, our findings are consistent with research showing that siblings tend to eat alike and have similar levels of physical activity,” concludes Dr. Pachucki. “In seeking to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity, it may be productive to consider prevention and treatment models that meaningfully recognize siblings as interconnected.”

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Notes for editors
“Within-family obesity associations: Evaluation of parent, child, and sibling relationships,” by Mark C. Pachucki, PhD, Michael F. Lovenheim, PhD, Matthew Harding, PhD, is published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, online ahead of Volume 47, Issue 4 (October 2014), DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2014.05.018, published by Elsevier.

Full text of the article is available to credentialed journalists upon request; contact Angela J. Beck at +1 734 764 8775 or ajpmmedia@elsevier.com. Journalists wishing to interview the authors should contact Kory Zhao, MGH Public Affairs, at +1 617 726 0274 or kzhao2@partners.org.

This study was funded by a grant by the Healthy Eating Research program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

About the authors
Mark C. Pachucki, PhD, Mongan Institute for Health Policy, Massachusetts General Hospital; Division of General Academic Pediatrics, assGeneral Hospital for Children; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

Michael F. Lovenheim, PhD, Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, and National Bureau of Economic Research

Matthew Harding, PhD, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC

About the American Journal of Preventive Medicine
The American Journal of Preventive Medicine is the official journal of The American College of Preventive Medicine and the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research. It publishes articles in the areas of prevention research, teaching, practice and policy. Original research is published on interventions aimed at the prevention of chronic and acute disease and the promotion of individual and community health. The journal features papers that address the primary and secondary prevention of important clinical, behavioral and public health issues such as injury and violence, infectious disease, women's health, smoking, sedentary behaviors and physical activity, nutrition, diabetes, obesity, and alcohol and drug abuse. Papers also address educational initiatives aimed at improving the ability of health professionals to provide effective clinical prevention and public health services. The journal also publishes official policy statements from the two co-sponsoring organizations, health services research pertinent to prevention and public health, review articles, media reviews, and editorials.

The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, with an Impact Factor of 3.945, is ranked 15th out of 158 Public, Environmental, and Occupational Health titles and 18th out of 151 General & Internal Medicine titles according to the 2012 Journal Citation Reports® published by Thomson Reuters.

About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care, and sometimes make groundbreaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions — among them ScienceDirect, Scopus, Elsevier Research Intelligence and ClinicalKey — and publishes nearly 2,200 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and over 25,000 book titles, including a number of iconic reference works.

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Media contact
Angela J. Beck, PhD, MPH
Managing Editor
+1 734 764 8775
ajpmmedia@elsevier.com