Tracking a dietary pattern associated with increased adiposity in childhood and adolescence

OBJECTIVE: Understanding dietary tracking may help to inform interventions to improve dietary intakes and health outcomes. We investigated how a dietary pattern (DP) associated with increased adiposity in childhood, tracked from 7 to 13 y of age in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). DESIGN AND METHODS: Three-day food diaries were collected at 7, 10 and 13 y. Reduced rank regression was used to score respondents for an energy-dense, high fat, low fibre DP at each age. Tracking coefficients were estimated for the DP and its key foods using data from 7,027 children. RESULTS: The DP tracking coefficient was 0.48 (95% CI: 0.44-0.52) for boys and 0.38 (95% CI: 0.35-0.41) for girls. Of ten key food groups, fruit, vegetables, high fibre bread, high fibre breakfast cereals and full fat milk intakes exhibited the strongest tracking, particularly among low consumers. Lower maternal education and greater prepregnancy maternal BMI predicted higher DP z-scores and lower fruit and vegetable intakes. CONCLUSIONS: A dietary pattern associated with increased adiposity tracks moderately from 7 to 13 y of age in this large UK cohort. Specific groups of families may require additional support to foster lifelong healthy dietary habits in their children.