Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Short Communication
  • Published:

Genetic predisposition to adiposity is associated with increased objectively assessed sedentary time in young children

International Journal of Obesity volume 42, pages 111–114 (2018)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Increased sedentariness has been linked to the growing prevalence of obesity in children, but some longitudinal studies suggest that sedentariness may be a consequence rather than a cause of increased adiposity. We used Mendelian randomization to examine the causal relations between body mass index (BMI) and objectively assessed sedentary time and physical activity in 3–8 year-old children from one Finnish and two Danish cohorts [NTOTAL=679]. A genetic risk score (GRS) comprised of 15 independent genetic variants associated with childhood BMI was used as the instrumental variable to test causal effects of BMI on sedentary time, total physical activity, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). In fixed effects meta-analyses, the GRS was associated with 0.05 SD/allele increase in sedentary time (P=0.019), but there was no significant association with total physical activity (beta=0.011 SD/allele, P=0.58) or MVPA (beta=0.001 SD/allele, P=0.96), adjusting for age, sex, monitor wear-time and first three genome-wide principal components. In two-stage least squares regression analyses, each genetically instrumented one unit increase in BMI z-score increased sedentary time by 0.47 SD (P=0.072). Childhood BMI may have a causal influence on sedentary time but not on total physical activity or MVPA in young children. Our results provide important insights into the regulation of movement behaviour in childhood.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1
Figure 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Prentice-Dunn H, Prentice-Dunn S . Physical activity, sedentary behavior, and childhood obesity: a review of cross-sectional studies. Psychol Health Med 2012; 17: 255–273.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Must A, Tybor D . Physical activity and sedentary behavior: a review of longitudinal studies of weight and adiposity in youth. Int J Obes 2005; 29: S84–S96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Hjorth MF, Chaput J-P, Ritz C, Dalskov S-M, Andersen R, Astrup A et al. Fatness predicts decreased physical activity and increased sedentary time, but not vice versa: support from a longitudinal study in 8-to 11-year-old children. Int J Obes 2014; 38: 959–965.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Metcalf BS, Hosking J, Jeffery A, Voss L, Henley W, Wilkin T . Fatness leads to inactivity, but inactivity does not lead to fatness: a longitudinal study in children (EarlyBird 45). Arch Dis Childhood 2010; 96: 942–947.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Richmond RC, Smith GD, Ness AR, den Hoed M, McMahon G, Timpson NJ . Assessing causality in the association between child adiposity and physical activity levels: a Mendelian randomization analysis. PLoS Med 2014; 11: e1001618.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Speliotes EK, Willer CJ, Berndt SI, Monda KL, Thorleifsson G, Jackson AU et al. Association analyses of 249,796 individuals reveal 18 new loci associated with body mass index. Nat Genet 2010; 42: 937–948.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Franks PW, Ravussin E, Hanson RL, Harper IT, Allison DB, Knowler WC et al. Habitual physical activity in children: the role of genes and the environment. Am J Clin Nutr 2005; 82: 901–908.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Väistö J, Eloranta A-M, Viitasalo A, Tompuri T, Lintu N, Karjalainen P et al. Physical activity and sedentary behaviour in relation to cardiometabolic risk in children: cross-sectional findings from the Physical Activity and Nutrition in Children (PANIC) Study. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act 2014; 11: 55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Felix JF, Bradfield JP, Monnereau C, van der Valk RJ, Stergiakouli E, Chesi A et al. Genome-wide association analysis identifies three new susceptibility loci for childhood body mass index. Hum Mol Genet 2015; 25: 389–403.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Andersen LBB, Pipper CB, Trolle E, Bro R, Larnkjær A, Carlsen E et al. Maternal obesity and offspring dietary patterns at 9 months of age. Eur J Clin Nutr 2014; 69: 668–675.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Eloranta A, Lindi V, Schwab U, Kiiskinen S, Venäläinen T, Lakka H et al. Dietary factors associated with metabolic risk score in Finnish children aged 6–8 years: the PANIC study. Eur J Nutr 2014; 53: 1431–1439.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. WHO WHO Anthro for Personal Computers, Version 3.2. 2, 2011: Software for Assessing Growth and Development of the World’s Children. WHO: Geneva, Switzerland, 2010.

  13. Saari A, Sankilampi U, Hannila M-L, Kiviniemi V, Kesseli K, Dunkel L . New Finnish growth references for children and adolescents aged 0 to 20 years: length/height-for-age, weight-for-length/height, and body mass index-for-age. Ann Med 2011; 43: 235–248.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Baiocchi M, Cheng J, Small DS . Instrumental variable methods for causal inference. Stat Med 2014; 33: 2297–2340.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Bowden J, Davey Smith G, Burgess S . Mendelian randomization with invalid instruments: effect estimation and bias detection through Egger regression. Int J Epidemiol 2015; 44: 512–525.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Timmons BW, Naylor P-J, Pfeiffer KA . Physical activity for preschool children-how much and how? This article is part of a supplement entitled Advancing physical activity measurement and guidelines in Canada: a scientific review and evidence-based foundation for the future of Canadian physical activity guidelines co-published by Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism and the Canadian Journal of Public Health. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab 2007; 32 (Suppl. 2E):S122–S134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. De Geus EJ, Bartels M, Kaprio J, Lightfoot JT, Thomis M . Genetics of regular exercise and sedentary behaviors. Twin Res Hum Genet 2014; 17: 262–271.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Hinkley T, Salmon J, Okely AD, Trost SG . Correlates of sedentary behaviours in preschool children: a review. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act 2010; 7: 66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We specially want to express our thanks to the participant children and their parents that were part of the SKOT I, SKOT II and PANIC studies. This project was carried out as part of the research programme ‘Governing Obesity’ funded by the University of Copenhagen Excellence Programme for Interdisciplinary Research (www.go.ku.dk) and was supported by the Danish Diabetes Academy supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The SKOT studies were supported by grants from The Danish Directorate for Food, Fisheries and Agri Business as part of the ‘Complementary and young child feeding (CYCF) – impact on short- and long-term development and health’ project. The PANIC study was funded by grants from Ministry of Social Affairs and Health of Finland, Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland, Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Finnish Cultural Foundation, Juho Vainio Foundation, Foundation for Paediatric Research, Doctoral Programs in Public Health, Paavo Nurmi Foundation, Paulo Foundation, Diabetes Research Foundation, Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research, Research Committee of the Kuopio University Hospital Catchment Area (State Research Funding), Kuopio University Hospital (previous state research funding (EVO), funding number 5031343), and the city of Kuopio. The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research is an independent research center at the University of Copenhagen partially funded by an unrestricted donation from the Novo Nordisk Foundation (http://metabol.ku.dk). The work of Soren Brage was funded by the UK Medical Research Council [MC_UU_12015/3]. Tuomas O Kilpeläinen was supported by the Danish Council for Independent Research (DFF – 1333-00124 and Sapere Aude program grant DFF – 1331-00730B).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, Section of Metabolic Genetics, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    T M Schnurr, Y Mahendran, C T Have, T O Kilpeläinen & T Hansen

  2. Institute of Biomedicine Physiology, School of Medicine, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland

    A Viitasalo, A-M Eloranta, J Väistö, M Atalay, L-P Lyytikäinen, V Lindi & T Lakka

  3. Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    C T Damsgaard, M F Hjorth, L B Christensen & K F Michaelsen

  4. Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    S Brage

  5. Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories and Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

    L-P Lyytikäinen

  6. Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospital, Kuopio, Finland

    T Lakka

  7. Kuopio Research Institute of Exercise Medicine, Kuopio, Finland

    T Lakka

Authors
  1. T M Schnurr
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. A Viitasalo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. A-M Eloranta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. C T Damsgaard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Y Mahendran
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. C T Have
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. J Väistö
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. M F Hjorth
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. L B Christensen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. S Brage
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. M Atalay
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. L-P Lyytikäinen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  13. V Lindi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  14. T Lakka
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  15. K F Michaelsen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  16. T O Kilpeläinen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  17. T Hansen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to T M Schnurr.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Supplementary Information accompanies this paper on International Journal of Obesity website

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Schnurr, T., Viitasalo, A., Eloranta, AM. et al. Genetic predisposition to adiposity is associated with increased objectively assessed sedentary time in young children. Int J Obes 42, 111–114 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2017.235

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2017.235

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links