Postural control strategies differ in normal weight and overweight infants.
Danae Dinkel, Kailey Snyder, Victoria Molfese and 1 others
PMID 28458148WHAT IT FOUND
Overweight infants reached sitting at the same age as normal weight infants.
They moved more side-to-side but had less overall movement while sitting. The study did not follow developmental outcomes.
Key findings
01Overweight and normal weight infants did not differ significantly in the age at which they started sitting.
02Overweight infants had greater side-to-side sway and a smaller overall sway path than normal weight infants.
03From the first to the second sitting visit, a side-to-side sway pattern measure increased in overweight infants and decreased in normal weight infants.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Only 23 infants had usable data at both sitting visits, and only 9 were overweight, so the study may miss smaller differences or overstate the ones it found. The time of sitting onset was based on caregiver judgment that the infant could sit independently for 10 seconds, which may have varied between families. The study classified infants by weight-for-length, not by weight distribution, so it cannot say whether weight distribution explains the sway differences. The study measured lab-based sway, not whether these infants had delayed reaching, walking, speech, or cognition, so it does not tell clinicians what to do about developmental delay.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The supplied text does not state a funder.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that overweight infants have delayed sitting or that these sway differences require treatment. The study found no significant difference in sitting onset and did not measure later motor, speech, or cognitive outcomes.