Maternal mental health at 5 years and childhood overweight or obesity at 11 years: evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study.

We demonstrated that maternal psychological distress, particularly if severe, at 5 years was associated with risk of obesity (but not overweight) at 11 years. Accounting for potential explanatory factors attenuated this association to non-significance, suggesting a range of mechanisms may be implicated. Future research should seek to disentangle the potentially complex pathways linking explanatory factors, maternal distress and child obesity.