Background:

Obesity is a risk factor for non-communicable chronic diseases.

Objective:

Explore the relationship between anthropometric indicators and leptin levels in a group of mothers and their children.

Materials and Methods:

Cross-sectional study in 74 mother-child pairs from Cali, Colombia. Sociodemographic characterization, anthropo-metric evaluations, and serum leptin measurements were performed in 56 mothers and 26 children. Correlation coefficients were used between anthropometric indicators and leptin.

Results:

35.5% of mothers had excess weight, 80% had high body fat, and leptin levels of 20.5 ng/dL. The children were 20.7 ± 2.4 months old; 8.2% presented with excess weight; 4.1% had acute malnutrition, and leptin levels of 1.85 ng/dL. In mothers and children, the correlations between anthropometric indicators were significant and positive, the same with leptin in mothers, but in children leptin only correlated weakly with weight / height and BMI-age. Leptin in mothers was weakly correlated with anthropometric indicators in children, but not vice versa.

Conclusion:

The prevalence of excess weight was high in mothers and less so in their children. Leptin in mothers weakly correlated with anthropometric indicators in their children, but not vice versa.

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