Ambient air pollution and overweight and obesity in school-aged children in Barcelona, Spain

Background: Ambient air pollution may increase the risk of overweight and obesity in children. However, available evidence is still scarce and has mainly focused on ambient air pollution exposure occurring at home without considering the school environment. The aim of this study is to assess whether exposure to ambient air pollution at home and school is associated with overweight and obesity in primary school children. Methods: We studied 2660 children aged 7-10 years during 2012 in Barcelona. Child weight and height were measured and age- and sex-specific z-scores for body mass index (zBMI) were calculated using the WHO growth reference 2007. Overweight and obesity were defined using the same reference. Land use regression models were used to estimate levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter 27,346 particles/cm3) had a 30% higher odds of being overweight or obese (OR = 1.30; 95%CI = 1.03, 1.64) compared to the lowest tertile of UFP exposure. We also observed that exposure to NO2, PM2.5 or EC at schools was associated with higher odds of overweight or obese at medium compared to low levels of exposure. Home and school exposures did not show any significant associations with zBMI (except PM2.5-school comparing tertile 2 vs tertile 1) but were similar in direction. Conclusions: This study suggests that exposure to ambient air pollution, especially at school, is associated with childhood risk for overweight and obesity. A cautious interpretation is warranted because associations were not always linear and because school and home air pollution measurements were not directly comparable.This work was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the ERC grant agreement number: 26847. Measurements of air pollution have been collected as a part of the ESCAPE project funded by the European Community's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007–2011; grant agreement number: 211250). Jeroen de Bont is funded by La Marató de TV3 Foundation (Grant Number: 201621-30). Payam Dadvand is funded by a Ramón y Cajal fellowship (RYC-2012-10995) awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Finance. Maribel Casas received funding from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness) (MS16/00128)