TY - JOUR
T1 - Maternal History of Child Abuse and Obesity Risk in Offspring
T2 - Mediation by Weight in Pregnancy
AU - Leonard, Stephanie A.
AU - Petito, Lucia Catherine
AU - Rehkopf, David H.
AU - Ritchie, Lorrene D.
AU - Abrams, Barbara
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the families who participated in the NLSY79 studies. This research was conducted with restricted access to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the BLS. This project was supported by the National Institutes of Health grant R01MD006014. D.H.R. is supported by the National Institute on Aging (K01AG047280).
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright 2017, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc..
PY - 2017/8
Y1 - 2017/8
N2 - Background: Women's experience of childhood adversity may contribute to their children's risk of obesity. Possible causal pathways include higher maternal weight and gestational weight gain, which have been associated with both maternal childhood adversity and obesity in offspring. Methods: This study included 6718 mother-child pairs from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 in the United States (1979-2012). We applied multiple log-binomial regression models to estimate associations between three markers of childhood adversity (physical abuse, household alcoholism, and household mental illness) and offspring obesity in childhood. We estimated natural direct effects to evaluate mediation by prepregnancy BMI and gestational weight gain. Results: Among every 100 mothers who reported physical abuse in childhood, there were 3.7 (95% confidence interval: -0.1 to 7.5) excess cases of obesity in 2- to 5-year olds compared with mothers who did not report physical abuse. Differences in prepregnancy BMI, but not gestational weight gain, accounted for 25.7% of these excess cases. There was no evidence of a similar relationship for household alcoholism or mental illness or for obesity in older children. Conclusions: In this national, prospective cohort study, prepregnancy BMI partially explained an association between maternal physical abuse in childhood and obesity in preschool-age children. These findings underscore the importance of life-course exposures in the etiology of child obesity and the potential multi-generational consequences of child abuse. Research is needed to determine whether screening for childhood abuse and treatment of its sequelae could strengthen efforts to prevent obesity in mothers and their children.
AB - Background: Women's experience of childhood adversity may contribute to their children's risk of obesity. Possible causal pathways include higher maternal weight and gestational weight gain, which have been associated with both maternal childhood adversity and obesity in offspring. Methods: This study included 6718 mother-child pairs from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 in the United States (1979-2012). We applied multiple log-binomial regression models to estimate associations between three markers of childhood adversity (physical abuse, household alcoholism, and household mental illness) and offspring obesity in childhood. We estimated natural direct effects to evaluate mediation by prepregnancy BMI and gestational weight gain. Results: Among every 100 mothers who reported physical abuse in childhood, there were 3.7 (95% confidence interval: -0.1 to 7.5) excess cases of obesity in 2- to 5-year olds compared with mothers who did not report physical abuse. Differences in prepregnancy BMI, but not gestational weight gain, accounted for 25.7% of these excess cases. There was no evidence of a similar relationship for household alcoholism or mental illness or for obesity in older children. Conclusions: In this national, prospective cohort study, prepregnancy BMI partially explained an association between maternal physical abuse in childhood and obesity in preschool-age children. These findings underscore the importance of life-course exposures in the etiology of child obesity and the potential multi-generational consequences of child abuse. Research is needed to determine whether screening for childhood abuse and treatment of its sequelae could strengthen efforts to prevent obesity in mothers and their children.
KW - Adult survivors of child adverse events
KW - Child
KW - Child abuse
KW - Pediatric obesity
KW - Physical abuse
KW - Preschool obesity/etiology
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U2 - 10.1089/chi.2017.0019
DO - 10.1089/chi.2017.0019
M3 - Article
C2 - 28440693
AN - SCOPUS:85025142943
VL - 13
SP - 259
EP - 266
JO - Obesity and Weight Management
JF - Obesity and Weight Management
SN - 2153-2168
IS - 4
ER -