Children's Body Mass Index

The inverse relationship between socio-economic status, lower ranked occupations and lower education and obesity and weight gain in adults has been well demonstrated. However, prospective studies of children have been limited.

Children’s body mass index: Cohort, age and socio-economic influences, is a chapter in the larger report, Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children.  Written by Melissa Wake and Brigit Maguire from the Australian Institute of Family Studies, it illustrates correlations between childhood obesity, education and socio-economic backgrounds within Australia.  "Approximately a third of the children who were overweight/obese when they were 4–5 years were in the normal weight category when they were 8–9 years. Unfortunately, this was more than offset by the greater absolute numbers of children moving up from the normal weight category into the overweight or obese categories." The authors recommend prevention and intervention strategies in preschool and early school years.