Introduction: Claudine Burton-Jeangros, Stéphane Cullati, Amanda Sacker and David Blane.- Trajectories and transitions in childhood and adolescent obesity : Laura Howe, Riz Firestone, Kate Tilling and Debbie Lawlor.- Oral health over the life course: Anja Heilmann, Georgios Tsakos and Richard Watt.- A life course perspective on body size and cardio-metabolic health: William Johnson, Diana Kuh and Rebecca Hardy.- Health trajectories in people with cystic fibrosis in the UK: exploring the effect of social deprivation: David Taylor-Robinson, Peter Diggle, Rosalind Smith and Margaret Whitehead.- Moving towards a better understanding of socioeconomic inequalities in preventive health care use: a life course perspective: Sarah Missine.- In Inter-Cohort Variation in the Consequences of U.S. Military Service on Men's Body Mass Index Trajectories in Mid- to Late-Life: Janet Wilmoth, Andrew London and Christine Himes.- Linear mixed-effects and latent curve models for longitudinal life course analyses: Paolo Ghisletta, Olivier Renaud, Nadège Jacot and Delphine Courvoisier.- The analysis of individual health trajectories across the life course: Latent class growth models versus mixed models: Trynke Hoekstra and Jos Twisk.- Age, period and cohort processes in longitudinal and life course analysis: a multilevel perspective: Andrew Bell and Kelvyn Jones.