Most Kenyan children struggling with obesity or overweight have mothers who are fat, according to an analysis of Kenya’s Demographic and Health Survey.
Although this link is well-established globally, this is the first time it has become clear in Kenya.
The analysis also reveals children of rich Kenyans are getting fatter while the poor are becoming thinner.
Researchers blamed the mother-child obesity link on bad lifestyle choices some parents make for themselves and their children, but also said genetics play a role.
“Mothers with overweight and obesity were almost two-fold more likely to have overweight children compared to normal weight mothers,"the researchers said last week in a journal article.
"This remains significant when all maternal demographic characteristics were adjusted,” they said
At the same time, children of underweight mothers were 70 per cent less likely to be overweight compared to the children of mothers who were of normal weight.
Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health.
This is not a major problem in Kenya as it is in rich countries.
Nevertheless, the World Health Organization says more than one million Kenyan children aged between five and 19 will be obese by 2030 if no action is taken today.
Children with obesity face a higher risk of health problems that include asthma, diabetes and heart diseases, all which Kenya is struggling to contain.
“The evidence from this study calls for designing nutritional intervention programmes targeting children aged between 0–59 months in Kenya,” said the two medics who did the analysis.
It was published last week in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
The analysis was carried out by Kenyan medic Amos Mulu and Subas Neupane, both based at Tampere University in Finland.
They said Kenya cannot fight childhood obesity without considering mothers.
“The study suggests the need to implement evidence-based maternal and child health policy and preventive strategies for childhood overweight,” they said.
Their article is titled 'The association of maternal BMI with overweight among children aged 0–59 months in Kenya: A nationwide cross-sectional study.'
At least eight in every 100 Kenyan children become obese every year, according to the 2022 World Obesity Atlas.
Wealthy families may invest in healthy food and less physical activities; much time could be spent watching television
Surprisingly, Mulu’s analysis also showed that children of rich Kenyans are becoming fatter while those of poor people are getting thinner.
It is the opposite in developed countries where rich people tend to eat healthy foods and exercise more, as compared to poor who largely eat junk food.
Mulu said in Kenya, it is clear that being in the richer and richest wealth quintile is significantly associated with increased odds of being overweight.
“Wealthy families may invest in healthy food and less physical activities; much of the time could be spent on watching television,” he said.
“However, in the multivariable model adjusted for maternal and child-related factors, the association of wealth quintiles with childhood overweight was not clear.”
Another surprising link is that more educated parents have obese children compared to uneducated women, who would be expected to feed their children with a more unhealthy diet.
“Highly educated and employed parents have busy work schedules which could make it easy for them to buy ready-made meals for their children rather than making home meals,” Mulu and his colleague suggested.
Also, the more children a family in Kenya has, the less obese or overweight the children are likely to be.
“We found that households with only one child had the highest prevalence of overweight as opposed to those with two or more children,” Mulu said.
The researchers analysed results from the 2014 KDHS, a few months before the latest KDHS was released months earlier.
The 2022 KDHS, however, shows no change in the trajectory.
The 2014 KDHS looked at measurements of height and weight for 21,435 children born from 2009 and under the age of five, and 13,143 mothers aged 15 to 49 years.
Mothers' BMI was categorised using the WHO standard four categories: underweight, normal weight, overweight and obesity.
Overweight among children was also defined according to WHO guidelines.
(Edited by V. Graham)
