Wei Jie Gong, Daniel Yee Tak Fong, Man Ping Wang, Tai Hing Lam, Thomas Wai Hung Chung, Sai Yin Ho
BMC public health 2022 Jan 06How weight status changes with time may affect self-esteem was seldom studied. We identified the distinct trajectories of overweight/obesity over age and assessed their associations with different domains of self-esteem in Hong Kong Chinese children. Territory-wide longitudinal data of 48,558 children (girls: 50.0%; 6.3 ± 0.51 years) studying Primary 1 in the academic cohorts of 1995/96 and 1996/97 followed till Primary 6 were obtained from the Student Health Service of Hong Kong. Weight was annually measured and categorized as underweight/normal and overweight/obese and self-esteem was measured in Primary 6. Distinct trajectories of weight status were first identified using growth mixture modeling and their associations with low self-esteem were assessed by logistic regression. Four distinct overweight/obesity trajectories were identified: never (76.8%), late-onset (8.1%), early-onset (4.2%) and chronic (10.9%) overweight/obesity. Compared with children who were never overweight/obese, more of those in the late-onset or chronic overweight/obesity group showed low self-esteem and specific domains including general, social and academic/school-related (adjusted odds ratios: 1.20 - 1.43, all P < 0.001) except parent/home-related self-esteem (P = 0.36), whereas children being in the early-onset overweight/obesity group showed no significant difference (P ≥ 0.53) except a lower risk of low social self-esteem (adjusted odds ratio = 0.82, P = 0.03). Late-onset or chronic overweight/obesity predicted low general, social and academic/school-related self-esteem. Children who successfully reduced weight may have equal levels of self-esteem or even better social self-esteem than those being always underweight/normal weight. Overweight/obese children had a vulnerability to self-esteem in non-domestic environments. © 2021. The Author(s).
Wei Jie Gong, Daniel Yee Tak Fong, Man Ping Wang, Tai Hing Lam, Thomas Wai Hung Chung, Sai Yin Ho. Late-onset or chronic overweight/obesity predicts low self-esteem in early adolescence: a longitudinal cohort study. BMC public health. 2022 Jan 06;22(1):31
PMID: 34991549
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