Associations between paediatric obesity, chemical mixtures and environmental factors, in a national cross‐sectional study of Canadian children

Summary Background Whilst single chemical exposures are suspected to be obesogenic, the combined role of chemical mixtures in paediatric obesity is not well understood. Objectives We aimed to evaluate the potential associations between chemical mixtures and obesity in a population‐based sample of Canadian children. Methods We ascertained biomonitoring and health data for children aged 3–11 from the cross‐sectional Canadian Health Measures Survey from 2007 to 2019. Several chemicals of interest were measured in blood or urine and paediatric obesity was defined based on measured anthropometrics. Using quantile‐based G computational analysis, we quantified the effects of three chemical mixtures selected a priori. Models were adjusted for sociodemographic and environmental factors identified through a directed acyclic graph. Results are presented through adjusted relative risks (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Results We included 9147 children. Of these, 24.1% were overweight or obese. Exposure to the mixture of bisphenol A, acrylamide, glycidamide, metals, parabens and arsenic increased the risk of childhood overweight or obesity by 45% (95% CI 1.09, 1.93), obesity by 109% (95% CI 1.27, 3.42) and central obesity by 82% (95% CI 1.30, 2.56). Conclusions Our findings support the role of early childhood chemical exposures in paediatric obesity and the potential combined effects of chemicals.