Citation

Sokol RL, Ennett ST, Shanahan ME, Gottfredson NC, Poti JM, Halpern CT, Fisher EB. Child Abuse Negl. 2019; 96: e104070.

Affiliation

Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, United States.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104070

PMID

31323420

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Prior studies have suggested maltreatment is a strong predictor of later weight outcomes, such that maltreatment experiences in childhood increase the likelihood of being overweight or obese in adulthood. Estimates of this relationship may be biased due to: 1) inadequate selection of covariates; 2) improper operationalization of child maltreatment; and 3) restricting analyses to cross-sectional outcomes.

OBJECTIVES: Evaluate how latent classes of child maltreatment experiences are associated with a longitudinal BMI measure from adolescence to adulthood. PARTICIPANTS: Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health.

METHODS: We evaluated how previously developed latent classes of child maltreatment experiences were associated with average excess BMI from adolescence to adulthood using multivariate linear regression.

RESULTS: In the unadjusted model, individuals in the poly-maltreatment class (b = 0.46, s.e. = 0.20) and individuals who experienced adolescent-onset maltreatment (b = 0.36, s.e. = 0.11) had higher average excess BMI compared to individuals in the no maltreatment class. After adjusting for confounders, the relationship between poly-maltreatment and average excess BMI abated, whereas the relationship between adolescent-onset maltreatment and average excess BMI sustained (b = 0.28, s.e. = 0.11).

CONCLUSIONS: Contrary to previous findings, our analyses suggest the association between maltreatment experiences and longitudinal weight outcomes dissipates after controlling for relevant confounders. We did find a relationship, however, between adolescent-onset maltreatment and average excess BMI from adolescence to adulthood. This suggests the importance of maltreatment timing in the relationship between maltreatment and weight.

Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Language: en

Keywords

Body mass index; Child maltreatment; Directed acyclic graphs; Latent class analysis; Longitudinal; Obesity