STORK G CHILDREN: A transgenerational perspective on obesity and type 2 diabetes. Should prevention of childhood obesity in high-risk groups start before birth?

The research questions related to children’s growth will utilise data from children of mothers who participated in STORK-G1, and will first be analysed as part of Ingun Toftemo’s (GP) postdoc project. However, senior researchers will also develop new PhD or postdoc projects or write additional papers to cover the other research questions and related topics.  
We will take advantage of available repeated measurements of childhood BMI from birth, and from seven time-points between 6 weeks postpartum up 4-5 years of age, supplemented with new data from school-age in the same children from the STORK G-1 study, in the first phase, up to prepubertal age (up to 8-9 years), and eventually in later school age (13-14 years). The BMI trajectories of these children, with a range of parental exposures available, represent a critical and potentially modifiable public health outcome, and causal models of key determinants will contribute new knowledge about size of adverse and preventive effects, and may suggest the optimal timing of preventive interventions for mothers and children in multi-ethnic populations, not only in Norway but in similar populations worldwide.