Table 1.
Sample characteristics by sibling status.
Fig 1.
BMI-SDS by age range and sibling status.
In each age range, the statistical reference group was “total siblings”. Significant differences between only children and children with siblings are presented as means with a vertical error indicator (standard error of the mean): ***p<0.001. Abbreviations: SDS, standard deviation score.
Fig 2.
BMI-SDS by age and sibling status.
BMI standard deviation scores at 1-yearintervals are shown according to sibling status: first-born, second-born, third-or-later-born, twins and only children. The values are means with a vertical error indicator (standard error of the mean). The number of measurements per age and sibling status is shown in the table.
Fig 3.
Height-SDS by age and sibling status.
Height standard deviation scores in 1-yearintervals are shown according to sibling status: first-born, second-born, third-or-later-born, twins and only children. The values are means with a vertical error indicator (standard error of the mean).
Fig 4.
Effect plots of risk factors on BMI-SDS.
Predicted values of BMI standard deviation score plotted against one continuous covariate/risk factor: a) birth weight; b) maternal prepregnancy BMI; c) maternal pregnancy weight gain; and d) maternal age. The calculations were made with mixed models, with the results stored in a special SAS item store; based on this calculation, the effect plots were generated in a statistical post-fitting analysis. 95% confidence intervals are shown as blue shade. Significance levels are shown in the plot for each respective risk factor. Significance was reached when: *** p<0.001.
Fig 5.
Relation between BMI-SDS and breastfeeding and physical activity.
Associations between two categories of breastfeeding and three categories of physical activity with BMI standard deviation scores. The values are means with a vertical error indicator (standard error of the mean). The labelling of the bars represents the respective number of cases analysed. Statistically significant difference in means was considered as *p<0.05, ***p<0.001 using mixed models. The statistical reference category was the group with the highest number of answers: “Up to 2 times/week” for the categories “Participation in organised physical activity” and “Participation in non-organised physical activity”; “3–7 times/week” for the category “Playing outdoors”.
Table 2.
Parental characteristics by sibling status.
Table 3.
Relationship between BMI-SDS and age gap of siblings.
Table 4.
Duration of breastfeeding by sibling status.
Fig 6.
Assessment of physical activity in three categories by sibling status.
The graph shows the percentage of children per sibling status selecting the three activity categories “Child plays outdoor”, “Participation in non-organised physical activity” and “Participation in organised physical activity”. The answer categories were aggregated into three groups: 1) Never, 2) Up to 2 times/week and 3) 3–7 times/week.
Table 5.
Multivariate analysis of the effect size order of postnatal risk factors on BMI-SDS.