Associations between paediatric obesity, chemical mixtures and environmental factors, in a national cross-sectional study of Canadian children

Abstract

Background: Whilst single chemical exposures are suspected to be obesogenic, the combined role of chemical mixtures in paediatric obesity is not well understood.

Objectives: We aimed to evaluate the potential associations between chemical mixtures and obesity in a population-based sample of Canadian children.

Methods: We ascertained biomonitoring and health data for children aged 3-11 from the cross-sectional Canadian Health Measures Survey from 2007 to 2019. Several chemicals of interest were measured in blood or urine and paediatric obesity was defined based on measured anthropometrics. Using quantile-based G computational analysis, we quantified the effects of three chemical mixtures selected a priori. Models were adjusted for sociodemographic and environmental factors identified through a directed acyclic graph. Results are presented through adjusted relative risks (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI).

Results: We included 9147 children. Of these, 24.1% were overweight or obese. Exposure to the mixture of bisphenol A, acrylamide, glycidamide, metals, parabens and arsenic increased the risk of childhood overweight or obesity by 45% (95% CI 1.09, 1.93), obesity by 109% (95% CI 1.27, 3.42) and central obesity by 82% (95% CI 1.30, 2.56).

Conclusions: Our findings support the role of early childhood chemical exposures in paediatric obesity and the potential combined effects of chemicals.

Keywords: CHMS; chemicals; environmental factors; mixtures; paediatric obesity.