Excess Weight in Children 4 to 7 Years of Age – Targeting Risk Factors for Intervention

Based on data from the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, the first section of this fascicle presents trends in the weight status of Québec children from the age of 4 to 7. The next section covers the associations between excess weight and certain aspects of health, and the psychosocial development of children at 7 years of age, namely in Grade 1 (first year of elementary school).

Following this, in order to inform prevention programs and benefit from the data collected since birth, we examine the links between excess weight at the age of 7 and various characteristics of children and the environment in which they are growing up.

Therefore, associations between excess weight at school age and sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle habits and perinatal factors are examined. These include sleep, diet, physical or sedentary activities, parent’s weight status (when the child was 17 months) and certain diet-related behaviours of children before they entered school.