{"doi":"10.17615/qnj3-vy87","title":"Why do some overweight children remain overweight, whereas others do not?","abstract":"OBJECTIVE: To study the dynamics of childhood overweight and the influence of dietary intake on tracking of overweight. DESIGN AND SETTING: A follow-up study conducted in China. SUBJECTS: Ninety-five overweight children, 6-13 years old, identified from 1455 children at baseline, were followed over a 2-year period. METHODS: Data on anthropometry and 3-day dietary intake were collected at baseline and during follow-up. Overweight was defined using the International Obesity Task Force reference of body mass index (BMI)-for-age. Differences between groups were tested using analysis of variance and Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel tests. RESULTS: Of the 95 overweight children, 36.8% remained overweight 2 years later ('tracking group'). Urban boys were three times more likely than rural boys to remain overweight (63.2% vs. 21.9%). At baseline, the tracking group had higher BMI, body weight and fat intake (% of energy), and lower carbohydrate intake (% of energy), than the non-tracking group (who shifted from overweight to not overweight); they were more likely to have a high-fat or high-meat diet, but less likely to have a diet high in carbohydrate or vegetables and fruit. During the follow-up, the tracking group increased fat intake and reduced carbohydrate intake while the non-tracking group did not; and they also grew slower in height but faster in weight. Tracking of overweight seemed to be related to tracking of high-meat (relative risk (RR) 2.4, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.0-5.6, P < 0.05) and high-fat (RR 1.5, 95% CI 0.9-2.5, P < 0.1) diets. CONCLUSION: Considerable changes in children's overweight status during childhood and adolescence were observed in China, a transitional society. Dietary patterns, particularly dietary composition, seemed to influence the tracking patterns of overweight.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2021,"id":210827,"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":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.7085,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":235011,"name":"Barry M. Popkin","orcid":"0000-0001-9495-9324","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":460972,"name":"Youfa Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-6041-6011","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":800322,"name":"Keyou Ge","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:52:16.049481Z","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":[]}