Early growth, menarche, and adiposity rebound.

Adiposity rebound is thought to arise earlier in children with a high body-mass index (BMI) at age 3 years. To test this hypothesis we followed up a birth cohort. Our results indicate that earlier rebound arose in children who were tall at age 3 years, but that timing was not associated with BMI at age 3 years in boys, and arose later in girls with higher BMIs at age 3. Adiposity rebound also arose earlier in children whose parents had high rather than low BMIs. Magnitude of BMI at rebound was associated with height and BMI at age 3, and with parental BMI. There was a correlation between age at rebound and age at menarche, which suggests that timing of rebound is an indicator of physical maturity rather than obesity.