Socioeconomic disadvantage and polygenic risk for high BMI magnify obesity risk across childhood: a longitudinal, population, cohort study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Across the life course, socioeconomic disadvantage disproportionately afflicts those with genetic predispositions to inflammatory diseases. We describe how socioeconomic disadvantage and polygenic risk for high BMI magnify the risk of obesity across childhood, and using causal analyses, explore the hypothetical impact of intervening on socioeconomic disadvantage to reduce adolescent obesity. METHODS: Data were drawn from a nationally representative Australian birth cohort, with biennial data collection between 2004 and 2018 (research and ethics committee approved). We generated a polygenic risk score for BMI using published genome-wide association studies. We measured early-child..