Understanding how metabolic problems develop is of fundamental interest to the people with age-associated diseases and their families and there is strong community interest in protecting young people from a life-long trajectory towards a diabetic or otherwise metabolically unfavourable future. In recent years, childhood obesity has emerged as an important phenomenon that is projected to increase the number of people with high cardiometabolic risk when the young generations grow old. In the first phase, we will describe how a population of children at risk will eventually develop cardiometabolic risk factors later in their life using unprecedented longitudinal datasets and sophisticated statistical techniques. If additional funding is achieved for the second stage, we will also investigate if the combination of genetics and childhood trajectories of development would allow us to identify the most susceptible individuals and thus ultimately provide the parents with the information that they can use to take preventative action. The lead investigator has developed a statistical framework that allows us to integrate multiple time points and multiple biomarkers simultaneously across partially incomplete datasets. Such a multi-decadal and multi-variable view of metabolic dysfunction is scientifically unique and we also expect to derive novel information about the diversity of metabolic trajectories within real-world human populations. This epidemiological information will be useful for public health policy makers who wish to mitigate the adverse health impacts due to the prevailing obesity-promoting environment. Our study will provide a detailed biochemical fingerprint of the trajectory that carries the highest risk for late-life diseases that can guide nutritional inputs and other life style factors within preventative strategies.