Oral Presentation ESA-SRB-ANZOS 2025 in conjunction with ENSA

Association of Health-Related Quality of Life and Weight Status throughout Childhood and Adolescence (128135)

Alison Hayes 1 , Tom Lung 1 , Louise Baur 2 , Anagha Killedar 3 , Kirsten Howard 3
  1. School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  2. Department of Child and Adolescent Health, University of Sydney Medical School , Camperdown, NSW, Australia
  3. The Leeder Centre, University of Sydney School of Public Health, Camperdown, NSW, Australia

 The aim of this study was to examine health-related quality of life (HRQoL) during the child and adolescent life-course and how it is impacted by weight status and sex. We used data on 9745 children from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children aged between 2 and 17, that included quality of life and weight status collected biennially.  HRQoL was measured with the parent-reported Pediatric quality of life inventory (PedsQL), on a 0-100 scale. Height and weight were objectively measured and BMI-z was categorized into healthy, overweight, obesity or severe obesity, using WHO cut-points. We investigated the association of child HRQoL with weight status and sex, during 3 periods of childhood corresponding to age: 2-5 years (early childhood), 6-11 years (middle childhood) and 12 -17 years (adolescence).  Analyses controlled for socioeconomic position and for continuous age to account for age effects within the groups.

The negative association of HRQoL and weight status strengthened with increasing age and higher weight status. For example, the mean (95%CI) differences in PedsQL total score between healthy weight and obesity in early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence were respectively: -0.9(−1.7 to −0.2) p= 0.028, -3.6 (-4.4, to -2.9) p<0.001 and -5.5 (-6.4 to -4.6) points (p<0.001). Middle childhood was a critical time for development of weight-related inequalities in HRQoL.  Weight-associated loss of HRQoL was greatest for adolescents with severe obesity at −10.5 points.  There were no significant differences between girls’ and boys’ HRQoL in early or middle childhood (p>0.05). Weight-related loss of HRQoL in adolescence was similar for girls and boys, but independent of weight, girls’ HRQoL declined with age whilst boys’ HRQoL did not, resulting in a 5-point difference in PedsQL score at 17 years. This study highlights the important contribution of weight status and sex to declining HRQoL in childhood and adolescence. 6870646a0b168-abstract+Figure+with+title.jpg