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Introduction: Only a few studies have prospectively examined stability of eating behaviors in childhood. These argue that eating behaviors are fairly stable from early childhood onwards, but knowledge on individual patterns across childhood is lacking. Here, we examined patterns of eating behaviors from ages 4-10 years in a population-based sample and aimed to identify parental and earlylife predictors of these patterns., Methods: Participants were 3514 children from The Generation R Study with repeated assessments of the Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire at ages 4 and 10 years. Patterns of emotional overeating, food responsiveness, enjoyment of food and satiety responsiveness were studied with person-centered Latent Class Growth Analysis with the aim to identify sub-groups of children with distinct eating behavior patterns. Using univariate multinomial logistic and linear regression, parental and early life predictors of eating behavior patterns were examined., Results: We identified three patterns of emotional overeating (stable low (n = 2240); moderately increasing (n = 1028); strongly increasing (n = 246)) and five patterns of food responsiveness (stable low (n = 2343); high decreasing (n = 238); moderately increasing (n = 679); strongly increasing (n = 141); stable high (n = 113)) from 4 to 10 years. For enjoyment of food and satiety responsiveness a similar pattern was identified for all children. Obesogenic eating behavior patterns were associated with a higher birth weight and BMI, emotional and behavioral problems, maternal overweight/obesity and controlling feeding strategies., Discussion: This study suggests that children develop distinct patterns of emotional overeating and food responsiveness across childhood. Parental and early life predictors, particularly a higher weight status and psychiatric problems, are potential correlates of the development and maintenance of unhealthy eating behavior patterns across childhood. This knowledge might help identifying children at risk of developing obesogenic eating behaviors., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Background: Not much is known about the ethnic differences in cardiovascular risk factors during childhood in European countries. We examined the ethnic differences in childhood cardiovascular risk factors in the Netherlands., Methods: In a multi-ethnic population-based prospective cohort study, we measured blood pressure, left ventricular mass, and levels of cholesterol, triglyceride and insulin at the median age of 6.2years., Results: As compared to Dutch children, Cape Verdean and Turkish children had a higher blood pressure, whereas Cape Verdean, Surinamese-Creole and Turkish children had higher total-cholesterol levels (p-values<0.05). Turkish children had higher triglyceride levels, but lower insulin levels than Dutch children (p-values<0.05). As compared to Dutch children, only Turkish children had an increased risk of clustering of cardiovascular risk factors (odds ratio: 2.45 (95% confidence interval 1.18, 3.37)). Parental pre-pregnancy factors explained up to 50% of the ethnic differences in childhood risk factors. In addition to these factors, pregnancy and childhood factors and childhood BMI explained up to 50%, 12.5% and 61.1%, respectively., Conclusions: Our results suggest that compared to Dutch children, Cape Verdean, Surinamese-Creole and Turkish children have an adverse cardiovascular profile. These differences are largely explained by parental pre-pregnancy factors, pregnancy factors and childhood BMI., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)