{"doi":"10.17615/kqb3-ws53","title":"Weight Gain in the First Two Years of Life Is an Important Predictor of Schooling Outcomes in Pooled Analyses from Five Birth Cohorts from Low- and Middle-Income Countries","abstract":"Schooling predicts better reproductive outcomes, better long-term health, and increased lifetime earnings. We used data from 5 cohorts (Brazil, Guatemala, India, the Philippines, and South Africa) to explore the relative importance of birthweight and postnatal weight gain for schooling in pooled analyses (n = 7945) that used appropriate statistical methods [conditional weight (CW) gain measures that are uncorrelated with prior weights] and controlled for confounding. One SD increase in birthweight, ∼0.5 kg, was associated with 0.21 y more schooling and 8% decreased risk of grade failure. One SD increase in CW gain between 0 and 2 y, ∼0.7 kg, was associated with higher estimates, 0.43 y more schooling, and 12% decreased risk of failure. One SD increase of CW gain between 2 and 4 y, ∼0.9 kg, was associated with only 0.07 y more schooling but not with failure. Also, in children born in the lowest tertile of birthweight, 1 SD increase of CW between 0 and 2 y was associated with 0.52 y more schooling compared with 0.30 y in those in the upper tertile. Relationships with age at school entry were inconsistent. In conclusion, weight gain during the first 2 y of life had the strongest associations with schooling followed by birthweight; weight gain between 2 and 4 y had little relationship to schooling. Catch-up growth in smaller babies benefited schooling. Nutrition interventions aimed at women and children under 2 y are among the key strategies for achieving the millennium development goal of universal primary education by 2015.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":144148,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9532,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":39459,"name":"Bernardo Lessa Horta","orcid":"0000-0001-9843-412X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":38506,"name":"Santosh K. Bhargava","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":39427,"name":"Caroline Fall","orcid":"0000-0003-4402-5552","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":38911,"name":"Reynaldo Martorell","orcid":"0000-0001-8862-7243","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":613080,"name":"Lorna Perez","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":39596,"name":"César G. Victora","orcid":"0000-0002-2465-2180","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":612659,"name":"Subrata Biswas","orcid":"0000-0003-3827-0615","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":39202,"name":"Aryeh D. Stein","orcid":"0000-0003-1138-6458","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":298896,"name":"Fernando C. Barros","orcid":"0000-0001-5973-1746","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":324211,"name":"Linda S. Adair","orcid":"0000-0002-3670-8073","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":515114,"name":"Linda Richter","orcid":"0000-0002-3654-3192","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:17:45.339291Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}