Effects of Childhood Asthma on the Development of Obesity among School-aged Children

Rationale: Asthma and obesity often occur together in children. It is unknown whether asthma contributes to the childhood obesity epidemic.Objectives: We aimed to investigate the effects of asthma and asthma medication use on the development of childhood obesity.Methods: The primary analysis was conducted among 2,171 nonobese children who were 5–8 years of age at study enrollment in the Southern California Children’s Health Study (CHS) and were followed for up to 10 years. A replication analysis was performed in an independent sample of 2,684 CHS children followed from a mean age of 9.7 to 17.8 years.Measurements and Main Results: Height and weight were measured annually to classify children into normal, overweight, and obese categories. Asthma status was ascertained by parent- or self-reported physician-diagnosed asthma. Cox proportional hazards models were fitted to assess associations of asthma history with obesity incidence during follow-up. We found that children with a diagnosis of asthma at cohort ...