Reduced Fat Oxidation as a Potential Pathway Linking Early - Life Adversity to Obesity Risk: Evidence From Vanuatu

Bhuiyan, Md. Khaled and Baca, Patrick and Hinz, Elena and Kiel, Eddy and Kotra, Krishna K. and Mattison, Peter and McGrosky, Amanda and Merecado, Denise and Pontzer, Herman and Sena, Cecilia and Towner, Mary and Wander, Katherine and Wallace, Ian and Cully, Siobhan (2026) Reduced Fat Oxidation as a Potential Pathway Linking Early - Life Adversity to Obesity Risk: Evidence From Vanuatu. American Journal of Human Biology, 38 (1). NA. ISSN 1042-0533

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Abstract

Objectives: Adverse environmental conditions during early life can increase the risk of obesity in adulthood, but the underlying mechanisms are not completely understood. Here, we test the hypothesis that early-life adversity leads to a lower metabolic rate and reduced fat oxidation, factors expected to increase fat accumulation.
Methods: We used data collected from 80 children and adolescents (aged 6–15 years; n = 39 females) living in Vanuatu. Relative lower limb length, calculated as the ratio of lower limb length to stature, was used as a surrogate measure of each individual's early-life environmental conditions, with a shorter relative lower limb length considered indicative of greater adversity. Fasting
resting metabolic rate (RMR) and respiratory quotient (RQ) were measured with indirect calorimetry, and a higher RQ value was considered indicative of a lower rate of fat oxidation.
Results: We found that, in a linear mixed-effects
model including age, sex, and fat-free body mass as fixed effects and community and family as random effects, relative lower limb length was not significantly associated with RMR (p = 0.95). However, in a separate model, relative lower limb length was significantly negatively associated with RQ (p = 0.036), after accounting for the same fixed and random effects.
Conclusions: The latter finding suggests that adverse environmental conditions during early life may lead to reduced fat oxidation, which has the potential to increase the risk of obesity later in life. This finding might partially explain the so-called double burden
of malnutrition (the co-occurrence of undernutrition and obesity) currently affecting many low-and middle-income
countries.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	double burden of malnutrition | metabolic rate | Ni-Vanuatu | relative lower limb length | respiratory quotient
Subjects:	Q Science > Q Science (General) Q Science > QP Physiology
Divisions:	School of Agriculture, Geography, Environment, Ocean and Natural Sciences (SAGEONS)
Depositing User:	Krishna Kotra
Date Deposited:	16 Feb 2026 23:46
Last Modified:	16 Feb 2026 23:46
URI:	https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/15264

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