Background and aims: Prenatal nutritional indicators such as birth weight, birth length head circumference at birth are considered of great importance for later nutritional status, cognition and scholastic achievement (SA) at school-age The aim of this study was to assess the association of birth weight with later nutritional status and SA in the 2009 Quality Education Measurement System (SIMCE) and in the 2013 University Selection Test (PSU) both language (LSA) and mathematics (MSA).  
Methods: From a representative, proportional and stratified sample of 1,353 school-age children, of both sexes, enrolled in the 5th grade of elementary school and in the 1st grade of high school in the Metropolitan Region of Chile in 2010, 814 of them reports their birth weights. Nutritional, status was assessed through anthropometric parameters of Z-weight (Z-W), Z-height (Z-H) and Z-head circumference (Z-HC). Intellectual ability (IA) was measured by the Raven Progressive Matrices test and SA by the SIMCE and PSU tests. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analysis from the SAS software.                                
Results:  Birth weight was positively and significantly correlated with Z-HC (p< 0.0001), Z-H (p< 0.0001), and Z-BMI (p< 0.0001). Z-HC was the most important anthropometric indicator (of nutritional background and brain development)  positively and significantly correlated with SIMCE outcomes at the end of elementary school and with PSU results, both LSA and MSA at the end of high school (p< 0.0001)  and with IA  (p< 0.0001).
Conclusions: These findings confirm that birth weight is significantly associated with later nutritional status, especially Z-HC and this with cognition at school-age.
Grants FONDECYT 1100431 and 1150524

BIRTH WEIGHT AND THEIR INTERRELATIONSHIPS WITH LATER NUTRITIONAL STATUS, COGNITION AND SCHOLASTIC ACHIEVEMENT