Dietary Patterns and Growth From 12 to 24 Months of Age in African American Infants

Objectives To identify dietary patterns in 12-month-old African American infants and investigate their association with change in infant BMI z-score (BMIz) from 12 to 24 months. Methods The prospective longitudinal Infant Growth and Microbiome Study (IGram) enrolled African American women in their 3rd trimester of pregnancy who had a pre-pregnancy BMI >30 or <25 and followed them and their infants from birth to 24 months of age. At 12 months, mothers reported infant intake of 32 food items in the past 7 days using the CDC Infant Feeding Practices Study II questionnaire. With these data we employed principal component analysis to derive dietary patterns for infants aged 12 months. We used multiple regression to test associations of dietary pattern scores with change in infant BMIz between 12 and 24 months. Results IGram enrolled 368 infants at birth; 320 and 283 infants completed 12- and 24-month visits, respectively. The prevalence of BMIz > 2SD was 7.8% at 12 months and 6% at 24 months. We derived three dietary patterns which together explained 36% of the variation in the dataset. Based on the highest factor loadings for each pattern, they were named “Transitional/table food,” “Formula/baby cereal,” and “Fruit and vegetable/breast milk.” The former pattern included pancakes, pasta, rice, french fries, meat, eggs, and snack and sweet foods. Regression results suggested that, accounting for maternal pre-pregnancy obesity status, the “Fruit and vegetable/breast milk” pattern explained a small portion of the variance in BMIz increase from 12 to 24 months of age (β = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.01, 0.13, P = 0.03). Conclusions Preliminary findings of three distinct dietary patterns in African American infants at 12 months of age are an important first step in characterizing infant feeding patterns across the rich, longitudinal IGram dataset. A positive association of the “Fruit and vegetable/breast milk” pattern with change in infant BMIz from 12 to 24 months was unexpected and requires further investigation. Funding Sources An unrestricted donation from the American Beverage Foundation for a Healthy America to support the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Healthy Weight Program; the Research Institute of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; the NIH NIDDK.