Childhood maltreatment and BMI trajectories to mid-adult life: Follow-up to age 50y in a British birth cohort

Abstract

Background: Childhood maltreatment including abuse and neglect has been associated with adult obesity, but evidence on life-course development of obesity or BMI gain is unclear. We aim to establish whether childhood maltreatments are related to obesity or BMI at different life-stages 7y-50y and to identify possible explanations for associations. Methods: Childhood physical, psychological and sexual abuse, neglect and BMI at seven ages were recorded in the 1958 birth cohort (n∼15,000). Associations of child maltreatments with BMI at separate ages were tested using linear regression or logistic regression for obesity, and with rate of child-to-adult BMI gain using multilevel models. We adjusted for potential covariates. Results: Abuse was reported in ∼12% of the population. Abuse was not associated with elevated childhood BMI, but adult associations were observed: i.e. the abused had faster child-adult BMI gain than the non-abused; associations were independent of adult covariates. For physical abuse in both genders there was a positive linear association of ∼0.006/y zBMI gain with age after adjustment for all covariates. Similarly, there was a linear association of physical abuse with obesity risk: e.g. among females from a low ORadjusted of 0.34 (0.16,0.71) at 7y to 1.67 (1.25,2.24) at 50y. In females faster zBMI gains with age of ∼0.0034/y were observed for sexual abuse and increases in obesity risk were faster: from a low ORadjusted of 0.23 (0.06,0.84) at 7y to 1.34 (0.86,2.10) at 50y. Psychological abuse and neglect associations were less consistent. Conclusions: Childhood maltreatment associations with BMI or obesity varied across life: physical and, in females, sexual abuse were associated with faster lifetime BMI gains, which may have detrimental long-term health consequences.