The University of Hong Kong, Department of Community Medicine, School of Public Health, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China.
Soc Sci Med. 2010 Mar;70(6):834-43. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.11.009. Epub 2010 Jan 14.
Intergenerational 'mismatch' between maternal and adult environments, common in developing economies, has been hypothesized as contributing to obesity. In a rapidly developing population, we examined whether maternal conditions, proxied by maternal literacy, were associated with adult adiposity, proxied by body mass index (BMI) and waist-hip ratio (WHR) and whether these associations were modified by later life conditions, proxied by socio-economic position (SEP) at three life stages. We also examined if maternal conditions had sex-specific associations with adult adiposity. In a cross-sectional study of 19,957 adults (> or =50 years) from the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study (phases 2 and 3 in 2005-2008), we used multivariable linear regression to assess the association of maternal literacy with BMI and WHR, and whether the associations varied with sex, age or SEP. The adjusted association of maternal literacy with WHR varied with sex. In women, but not men, maternal illiteracy was associated with higher WHR and BMI, adjusted for age; these associations remained, although attenuated, after adjusting for lifestyle, life course SEP and paternal literacy. There was little evidence that associations varied with SEP at any stage, although continuity of poor conditions into early life may have exacerbated the association of maternal illiteracy with higher WHR in women. Poor maternal conditions in developing populations may increase vulnerability to adiposity in women. Whether such sex-specific intergenerational effects are driven by epigenetics, maternal sex hormones or other mechanisms, remains to be determined. However, mismatched maternal and later life conditions do not appear to be associated with adiposity. Our findings, although preliminary, imply that a transient epidemic of obesity may occur in the first generation of women who experience economic development.
代际“不匹配”，即发展中经济体中常见的母代与成年环境之间的不匹配，被假设为导致肥胖的一个因素。在一个快速发展的人群中，我们研究了母代条件（以母亲的文化程度来代表）是否与成年肥胖相关（以体重指数 BMI 和腰臀比 WHR 来代表），以及这些关联是否会受到生命三个阶段的社会经济地位（SEP）的影响。我们还检查了母代条件是否与成年肥胖存在性别特异性关联。在广州生物银行队列研究（2005-2008 年的第 2 阶段和第 3 阶段）中，我们对 19957 名年龄≥50 岁的成年人（> 50 岁）进行了横断面研究，使用多变量线性回归来评估母亲文化程度与 BMI 和 WHR 的关联，以及这些关联是否因性别、年龄或 SEP 而异。母亲文化程度与 WHR 的关联在性别上存在差异。在女性中，但在男性中没有，母亲不识字与较高的 WHR 和 BMI 相关，这与年龄有关；这些关联在调整生活方式、生命历程 SEP 和父亲文化程度后仍然存在，尽管有所减弱。尽管从生命早期开始的不良条件的连续性可能会加剧女性中母亲不识字与较高 WHR 的关联，但几乎没有证据表明这些关联在任何阶段都因 SEP 而变化。在发展中人群中，母代条件较差可能会增加女性对肥胖的易感性。这种性别特异性的代际效应是否由表观遗传学、母性激素或其他机制驱动，仍有待确定。然而，不匹配的母代和后期生活条件似乎与肥胖无关。我们的研究结果虽然初步，但表明在经历经济发展的第一代女性中，可能会出现肥胖的短暂流行。
