Abstract

Overnutrition is a relevant public health problem with a multifactorial origin. Associated factors include maternal nutritional status before, during, and after gestation, excessive gestational weight gain, and breastfeeding duration. The objective of the study was to evaluate the association between overnutrition in children aged 5-10 years and pre-and gestational nutritional status, exclusive breastfeeding, and maternal pathologies. The study consisted of 213 schoolchildren aged 5-10 years. Bio-socio-demographic data were obtained through interviews with mothers, previous maternal data and pregnancy follow-up records. Nutritional status was measured using weight-for-height and BMI z-score by age and sex. The STATA 15.0 software was used for statistical analysis. A total of 56% of the schoolchildren had overnutrition. Meanwhile, 53.1% of the mothers demonstrated pre-pregnancy overnutrition, which increased to 74.6% post-pregnancy. It was found that 71.4% of schoolchildren had experienced exclusive breastfeeding ≥6 months. Maternal age ≥35 years (p= 0.044) and pregestational nutritional status (p= 0.014) were statistically related. Maternal age ≥35 years increased overnutrition by almost two-fold (OR= 1.78; IC: 1.029-3.046), as did pre-gestational nutritional status (OR= 2.11; IC: 1.193-3.693) and maternal pathologies (OR= 1.41; IC: 1.073-2.694). In conclusion, schoolchildren aged 5-10 years with mothers ≥35 years of age, who had overnutrition in the pre-gestational period, and a pathology were 1.4 to 2.44 times more at risk of developing overnutrition than children without these factors.