High and Low Birth Weight and its Implication for Growth and Bone Development in Childhood and Adolescence

Aim: To investigate the relationship of birth weight (BW) to anthropometric measures, local body composition and bone development. Population and Methods: 284 individuals (age 5-19 yr, 145 females) were recruited from the Dortmund Nutritional and Anthropometric Longitudinally Designed (DONALD) study. Parameters of bone development (cortical bone mineral density [BMDcort], endosteal circumference [CE]) and of local body composition (cross-sectional fat area [FA]) were analyzed by pQCT at the forearm. Parameters were transformed into SD scores to adjust for age or height. Results: BW predicted weight-SDS (R = 0.221), height-SDS (R = 0.260) and FA-SDS (R = 0.150). Individuals with lower BW (<10 th percentile) had lower weight-SDS (p <0.01), height-SDS (p <0.01), BMDcort-SDS (p = 0.02) and higher CE-SDS (p = 0.05). BMDcort was correlated with BW (r = -0.319) and FA (r = -0.283) in pubertal females. Conclusion: BW is characterized by direct and indirect effects on growth, body composition and bone development.