Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T19:36:06.910Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

DOES CHILDHOOD NUTRITION PREDICT HEALTH OUTCOMES DURING ADULTHOOD? EVIDENCE FROM A POPULATION-BASED STUDY IN CHINA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2015

YAQIANG QI  and
JIANLIN NIU
YAQIANG QI*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Renmin University of China, Bejing, China
JIANLIN NIU
Affiliation:
Institute of Population and Labor Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China
*
1Corresponding author. Email address: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Using data collected from the 2008 survey of Internal Migration and Health in China, this study examines the impact of late childhood nutrition intakes on a wide range of indicators of adult health. The results show that respondents who consume rich nutrients (meat, fish, milk, etc.) less frequently during late childhood have worse health outcomes when they grow up. They are more likely to rate their health as ‘fair/poor’, report a greater number of chronic diseases, have a higher incidence of acute illness, perceive greater numbers of physical pains/discomforts and to suffer more from insomnia and depression. With respect to objective biometrics, respondents who have less access to rich nutrients at age 14 tend to attain a shorter stature, gain more weight as an adult, and are more likely to become obese or have low lung capacity. Taken together, the evidence in support of a harmful impact of late childhood undernutrition on adult health is stronger and more consistent for subjective health indicators than for the objective biometrics examined in this study. Moreover, the results also indicate that the long-term health impact of late childhood nutrition deprivation is especially detrimental for females in China.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 47 , Issue 5 , September 2015 , pp. 650 - 666
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barker, D. J. (1997) Fetal nutrition and cardiovascular disease in later life. British Medical Bulletin 53, 96–108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barker, D. J., Eriksson, J. G., Forsen, T. & Osmond, C. (2002) Fetal origins of adult disease: strength of effects and biological basis. International Journal of Epidemiology 31, 1235–1239.Google Scholar
Barker, D. J. & Osmond, C. (1986) Infant mortality, childhood nutrition, and ischaemic heart disease in England and Wales. Lancet 1, 1077–1081.Google Scholar
Black, R. E., Allen, L. H., Bhutta, Z. A., Caulfield, L. E., de Onis, M., Ezzati, M. et al. (2008) Maternal and child undernutrition: global and regional exposures and health consequences. Lancet 6736, 5–21.Google Scholar
Cade, J., Thompson, R., Burley, V. & Warm, D. (2002) Development, validation and utilization of food-frequency questionnaires: a review. Public Health Nutrition 5, 567–587.Google Scholar
Cameron, N. & Bogin, B. (2012) Human Growth and Development (2nd Edition). Elsevier Inc, Academic Press.Google Scholar
Chen, L. C., Huq, E. & D'Souza, S. (1981) Sex bias in the family allocation of food and health care in rural Bangladesh. Population and Development Review 7, 55–70.Google Scholar
Chen, Y. & Zhou, L. (2007) The long-term health and economic consequences of the 1959–1961 famine in China. Journal of Health Economics 26, 656–681.Google Scholar
Elo, I. T. & Preston, S. H. (1992) Effects of early-life conditions on adult mortality: a review. Population Index 58, 186–212.Google Scholar
Gluckman, P. D., Hanson, M. A., Cooper, C. & Thornburg, K. L. (2008) Effect of in utero and early-life conditions on adult health and disease. New England Journal of Medicine 359, 61–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McLaren, L. (2007) Socioeconomic status and obesity. Epidemiologic Reviews 29, 29–48.Google Scholar
Maruti, S. S., Feskanich, D., Rockett, H. R., Colditz, G. A., Sampson, L. A. & Willett, W. C. (2006) Validation of adolescent diet recalled by adults. Epidemiology 17, 226–229.Google Scholar
Maruti, S. S., Feskanich, D., Colditz, G. A., Frazier, A. L., Sampson, L. A., Michels, K. B. et al. (2005) Adult recall of adolescent diet: reproducibility and comparison with maternal reporting. American Journal of Epidemiology 161, 89–97.Google Scholar
Murray, C. J. L. & Chen, L. C. (1992) Understanding morbidity change. Population and Development Review 18, 481–503.Google Scholar
Osmani, S. & Sen, A. (2003) The hidden penalties of gender inequality: fetal origin of ill health. Economics and Human Biology 1, 105–121.Google Scholar
Parfitt, A. M. (1994) The two faces of growth: benefits and risks to bone integrity. Osteoporosis International 4, 382–398.Google Scholar
Prentice, A. M., Ward, K. A., Goldberg, G. R., Jarjou, L. M., Moore, S. E. & Fulford, A. J. (2013) Critical windows for nutritional interventions against stunting. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 97, 911–918.Google Scholar
Rockett, H. R., Breitenbach, M., Frazier, A. L., Witschi, J., Wolf, A. M., Field, A. E. & Colditz, G. A. (1997) Validation of a youth/adolescent food frequency questionnaire. Preventive Medicine 26, 808–816.Google Scholar
Rogol, A. D., Clark, P. A. & Roemmich, J. N. (2000) Growth and pubertal development in children and adolescents: effects of diet and physical activity. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 72, S521–528.Google Scholar
Sen, A. (2002) Health perception versus observation. British Medical Journal 324, 860–861.Google Scholar
Speck, B. J. & Bradley, C. B. (2000) A food frequency questionnaire for youth: psychometric analysis and summary of eating habits in adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health 28, 16–25.Google Scholar
Tanner, J. M. (1981) Growth and maturation during adolescence. Nutrition Reviews 39, 43–55.Google Scholar
Whiting, S. J., Vatanparast, H., Baxter-Jones, A., Faulkner, R. A., Mirwald, R. & Bailey, D. A. (2004) Factors that affect bone mineral accrual in the adolescent growth spurt. Journal of Nutrition 134, S696–700.Google Scholar
Wu, Y. (2006) Overweight and obesity in China. British Medical Journal 333, 362–363.Google Scholar