TY - JOUR A1 - Groppe, Karoline A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Executive function and weight status in children BT - a one-year longitudinal perspective JF - Child neuropsychology : a journal on normal and abnormal development in childhood and adolescence N2 - There is considerable evidence for an association between obesity and impaired executive function (EF) in adolescents and adults. However, little research has examined EF in overweight or obese children. Furthermore, data on EF in underweight individuals is lacking. In addition, there is no consensus on the directionality of the relationship between Body Mass Index (BMI) and EF, and longitudinal studies are rare. Thus, the present study examined whether children differ in their performance on a battery of EF tasks depending on their weight status (underweight, normal-weight, overweight), and investigated the longitudinal cross-lagged associations between EF and BMI. Hot EF (delay of gratification, affective decision-making), cool EF (attention shifting, inhibition, working memory [WM] updating), and BMI were assessed in 1,657 German elementary-school children at two time points, approximately one year apart. Overweight children exhibited slightly poorer attention shifting, WM updating, and affective decision-making abilities as compared to normal-weight children. Unexpectedly, they did not show any deficits in inhibition or delay of gratification. EF levels of underweight children did not differ significantly from those of normal-weight children. Furthermore, poor attention shifting and enhanced affective decision-making predicted a slightly higher BMI one year later, and a higher BMI also predicted poorer attention shifting and WM updating one year later. The latter association between BMI and subsequent EF scores, however, diminished when controlling for socioeconomic status. Results indicate that hot and cool EF plays a role in the weight development of children, and might be a promising factor to address in preventive interventions. KW - Hot and cool executive function KW - Overweight KW - Underweight KW - Middle childhood KW - Longitudinal Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2015.1089981 SN - 0929-7049 SN - 1744-4136 VL - 23 IS - 2 SP - 129 EP - 147 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mumm, Rebekka A1 - Hermanussen, Michael A1 - Scheffler, Christiane T1 - voice break as the marker of biological age JF - Acta paediatrica : nurturing the child N2 - Aim: We aimed to develop the first references for body height, body weight and body mass index (BMI) for boys based on the individual developmental tempo with respect to their voice break status. Methods: We re-analysed data from the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS study) on body height, body weight and body mass index based on the voice break, or mutation, in 3956 boys aged 10-17 years. We used the LMS method to construct smoothed references centiles for the studied variables in premutational, mutational and postmutational boys. Results: Body height, body weight and BMI differed significantly (p < 0.001) between the different stages of voice break. On average, boys were 5.9 cm taller, 5.8 kg heavier and had a 0.7 kg/m(2) higher BMI with every higher stage of voice break. Currently used growth references for chronological age in comparison with maturity-related references led to an average of 5.4% of boys being falsely classified as overweight. KW - Body mass index KW - Developmental tempo KW - Growth reference values KW - Overweight KW - Voice break Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/apa.13488 SN - 0803-5253 SN - 1651-2227 VL - 105 SP - e459 EP - e463 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Groppe, Karoline A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - The influence of hot and cool executive function on the development of eating styles related to overweight in children JF - Appetite : multidisciplinary research on eating and drinking N2 - Studies linking executive function (EF) and overweight suggest that a broad range of executive functions might influence weight via obesity-related behaviors, such as particular eating styles. Currently, however, longitudinal studies investigating this assumption in children are rare. We hypothesized that lower hot and cool EF predicts a stronger increase in eating styles related to greater weight gain (food approach) and a weaker increase in eating styles related to less weight gain (food avoidance) over a 1-year period. Hot (delay of gratification, affective decision-making) and cool (attention shifting, inhibition, working memory updating) EF was assessed experimentally in a sample of 1657 elementary-school children (German school classes 1-3) at two time points, approximately one year apart. The children's food-approach and food-avoidance behavior was rated mainly via parent questionnaires at both time points. As expected, lower levels of hot and cool EF predicted a stronger increase in several food-approach eating styles across a 1-year period, mainly in girls. Unexpectedly, poorer performance on the affective decision-making task also predicted an increase in certain food-avoidance styles, namely, slowness in eating and satiety responsiveness, in girls. Results implicate that lower EF is not only seen in eating-disordered or obese individuals but also acts as a risk factor for an increase in particular eating styles that play a role in the development of weight problems in children. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Hot/cool executive function KW - Development of eating behavior KW - Food approach KW - Food avoidance KW - Overweight KW - Middle childhood Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2014.12.203 SN - 0195-6663 SN - 1095-8304 VL - 87 SP - 127 EP - 136 PB - Elsevier CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Koch, Anne A1 - Pollatos, Olga T1 - Reduced facial emotion recognition in overweight and obese children JF - Journal of psychosomatic research N2 - Objective: Emotional problems often co-occur in overweight or obese children. However, questions of whether emotion recognition deficits are present and how they are reflected have only been sparsely investigated to date. Methods: Therefore, the present study included 33 overweight and obese as well as 33 normal weight elementary school children between six and ten years that were matched for sex, age and socioeconomic status. Participants were shown different emotional faces of a well-validated set of stimuli on a computer screen, which they categorized and then rated on an emotional intensity level. Key measures were categorization performance along with reaction times and emotional intelligence as well as emotional eating questionnaire ratings. Results: Overweight children exhibited lower categorization accuracy as well as longer reaction times as compared to normal weight children, while no differences in intensity ratings occurred. Reaction time to neutral facial expressions was negatively related to intrapersonal and interpersonal emotional intelligence and emotional eating correlated negatively with accuracy for recognizing sad expressions. Conclusion: Facial emotion decoding difficulties seem to be of importance in overweight and obese children and deserve further consideration in terms of their exact impact on social functioning as well as on the maintenance of elevated body weight during child development. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc All rights reserved. KW - Childhood obesity KW - Emotion KW - Emotional expressions KW - Face categorization KW - Overweight Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2015.06.005 SN - 0022-3999 SN - 1879-1360 VL - 79 IS - 6 SP - 635 EP - 639 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mumm, Rebekka A1 - Scheffler, Christiane A1 - Hermanussen, Michael T1 - Developing differential height, weight and body mass index references for girls that reflect the impact of the menarche JF - Acta paediatrica : nurturing the child N2 - Aim Growth is both a matter of amplitude and tempo. We aimed to develop references for body height, body weight and body mass index (BMI) with respect to tempo of maturity. Methods Data obtained from the German KiGGS study (2003-2006) on body height, body weight and presence or absence of the menarche were re-analysed in 3776 girls, aged 10-17years. We developed smoothed centiles for BMI-, body-height- and body-weight-for-age using the LMS method for premenarcheal and postmenarcheal girls. Results Body height, body weight and BMI differed significantly between premenarcheal and postmenarcheal girls. On average, postmenarcheal girls aged 11-17years were 5.3cm taller and 9.7kg heavier, and their BMI was 2.9kg/m2 higher than in premenarcheal girls of the same calendar age. Conclusion Adolescent BMI rises with calendar age and biological age. New reference charts for adolescent girls aged 10-18years were generated to be inserted into the currently used references to avoid misclassifying underweight and overweight pubertal girls. KW - Body mass index KW - Body mass index reference values KW - Menarche KW - Obesity KW - Overweight Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/apa.12625 SN - 0803-5253 SN - 1651-2227 VL - 103 IS - 7 SP - e312 EP - e316 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Janewa, Vanessa Schönfeld A1 - Ghosh, Arnab A1 - Scheffler, Christiane T1 - Comparison of BMI and percentage of body fat of Indian and German children and adolescents JF - Journal of biological and clinical anthropology : Anthropologischer Anzeiger ; Mitteilungsorgan der Gesellschaft für Anthropologie N2 - Today, serious health problems as overweight and obesity are not just constricted to the developed world, but also increase in the developing countries (Prentice 2006, Ramachandram et al. 2002). Focusing on this issue, BMI and percentage of body fat were compared in 2094 schoolchildren from two cross-sectional studies from India and Germany investigated in 2008 and 2009. The German children are in all age groups significantly taller, whereas the Indian children show higher values in BMI (e.g. 12 years: Indian: around 22 kg/m(2); German: around 19 kg/m(2)) and in the percentage of body fat (e.g. 12 years: Indian: around 27 %; German: around 18-20%) in most of the investigated age groups. The Indian children have significantly higher BMI between 10 and 13 (boys) respectively 14 years (girls). Indian children showed significant higher percentage of body fat between 10 and 15 years (boys) and between 8 and 16 years (girls). The difference in overweight between Indian and German children was strongest at 11 (boys) and 12 (girls) years: 70 % of the Indian but 20% of the German children were classified as overweight. In countries such as India that undergo nutritional transition, a rapid increase in obesity and overweight is observed. In contrast to the industrialized countries, the risk of overweight in developing countries is associated with high socioeconomic status. Other reasons of the rapid increase of overweight in the developing countries caused by different environmental or genetic factors are discussed. KW - Overweight KW - school children KW - industrial and developing countries Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1127/0003-5548/2012/0170 SN - 0003-5548 VL - 69 IS - 2 SP - 175 EP - 187 PB - Schweizerbart CY - Stuttgart ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Warschburger, Petra A1 - Kröller, Katja T1 - "Childhood overweight and obesity maternal perceptions of the time for engaging in child weight management" JF - BMC public health N2 - Background: There is an increasing awareness of the impact of parental risk perception on the weight course of the child and the parent's readiness to engage in preventive efforts, but only less is known about factors related to the parental perception of the right time for the implementation of preventive activities. The aim of this study was to examine parental perceptions of the appropriate time to engage in child weight management strategies, and the factors associated with different weight points at which mothers recognize the need for preventive actions. Methods: 352 mothers with children aged 2-10 years took part in the study. We assessed mothers' perceptions of the actual and preferred weight status of their child, their ability to identify overweight and knowledge of its associated health risks, as well as perceptions of the right time for action to prevent overweight in their child. A regression analysis was conducted to examine whether demographic and weight related factors as well as the maternal general risk perception were associated with recognizing the need to implement prevention strategies. Results: Although most of the parents considered a BMI in the 75th to 90th percentile a valid reason to engage in the prevention of overweight, 19% of the mothers were not willing to engage in prevention until their child reached the 97th percentile. Whereas the child's sex and the identification of an elevated BMI were significant predictors for parents' recognition of the 75th percentile as right point to engage in prevention efforts, an inability to recognize physical health risks associated with overweight silhouettes emerged as a significant factor predicting which parents would delay prevention efforts until a child's BMI reached the 97th percentile. Conclusion: Parental misperceptions of overweight and associated health risks constitute unfavorable conditions for preventive actions. Feedback on the health risks associated with overweight could help increase maternal readiness for change. KW - Maternal perception KW - Need for action KW - Prevention KW - Obesity KW - Overweight KW - Children Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-295 SN - 1471-2458 VL - 12 IS - 12 PB - BioMed Central CY - London ER -