Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Grube, Maike Miriam
• von der Lippe, Elena
• Schlaud, Martin
• Brettschneider, Anna-Kristin
• Baker, Jennifer L.

Titel

Does breastfeeding help to reduce the risk of childhood overweight and obesity? A propensity score analysis of data from the KiGGS study

Ist Teil von

• PloS one, 2015-03, Vol.10 (3), p.e0122534-e0122534

Ort / Verlag

United States: Public Library of Science

Erscheinungsjahr

2015

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Current studies suggest that the beneficial effect of breastfeeding on overweight and obesity may have been largely overestimated. We examined the relationship between >4 months of full breastfeeding and overweight/obesity in children living in Germany. We analyzed retrospectively collected data on breastfeeding from children aged 3-17 years who participated in the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS baseline study) between 2003 and 2006 (n = 13163). To minimize confounding, we applied propensity score matching and multivariate logistic regression analyses to estimate the effect of breastfeeding on childhood overweight and obesity. Adjusted analyses of the matched dataset (n = 8034) indicated that children who were breastfed for >4 months had a significant reduction in the odds of overweight (OR 0.81 [95% CI 0.71–0.92]) and obesity (OR 0.75 [95% CI 0.61–0.92]) compared to children who were not breastfed or who were breastfed for a shorter duration [corrected].Further analyses stratified by age group showed that the association was strongest in children aged 7-10 years (OR 0.67 [95% CI 0.53-0.84] for overweight and OR 0.56 [95% CI 0.39-0.81] for obesity), while no significant effect could be seen in other age groups. Our findings support the hypothesis that breastfeeding does have a beneficial effect on childhood overweight and obesity, although the effect seems to be strongest in children of primary school age.