This study investigated whether historical proxies for poor nutrition early in life were associated with differences in body composition and height among adult Hmong refugees. Life history and anthropometric data were collected from a sample of 279 Hmong aged 18-51 years who were born in Laos or Thailand and resettled in French Guiana or the United States following the Second Indochina War. Overall, 30.5% were born in a war zone in Laos, while 38.8% were displaced as infants; these individuals were presumed to have experienced malnutrition in the perinatal and infant periods, respectively. Resettlement in urban areas in the US was utilized as a proxy for greater exposure to excessive energy balance, compared with Hmong who resettled in rural areas in French Guiana. In multiple linear regression models, being displaced in infancy was negatively associated with height after controlling for confounders, while being born in a war zone was associated with higher adiposity and centralized body fat distribution. Resettlement in the US was associated with a higher centralization of subcutaneous fat, but not overall adiposity. These findings may be of interest to the study of the developmental origins of obesity, in a population that has undergone early malnutrition followed by migration and rapid nutritional transition.

The frequency of college students who reported that they first tried smoking and first smoked regularly while in college increased from freshman to senior year, indicating that the college years are a vulnerable period for smoking initiation and habituation.

Forced displacement from war appears to have a lasting effect on final adult height, sitting height and leg length, although not necessarily on the sitting height ratio in this sample.

Armed conflict regularly presents extremely adverse circumstances not only for combatants, but also for civilians. In fact, estimates from various wars over the past 70 years suggest that noncombatants comprise the majority of casualties. For survivors, war's effects are often embodied, leaving long-term effects on health and biology. Some of these effects, such as injuries and psychological trauma, are well known. Yet other effects may be subtle and may be elucidated by a developmental biological perspective. In early life, when growth rates are highest, conditions of war may have their greatest impact. Depending on local circumstances, a developing embryo, infant, or child growing in a place embroiled in armed conflict is likely to face—directly or indirectly—various stressors, including malnutrition, infectious disease, and/or psychological stress. Thus, the conditions of war and forced displacement may become embodied, getting under the skin for fundamental biological reasons.

The effectiveness of the body mass index (BMI; kg/m2) in assessing overweight/obesity may be diminished in populations of short stature. In a sample (n = 79) of Hmong refugee children in the United States, of age 4-11 years, median z scores for height, BMI, and the triceps skinfold were -1.04z, +0.53z, and +0.18z, respectively. Further, 41.7% of children were above the NHANES 85th percentile for BMI-for-age, categorizing them as overweight/obese. Assessment of obesity by other established criteria for children, such as the triceps skinfold and body fat percentage, produced significantly lower estimates than did BMI. This is consistent with patterns found in other stunted populations, suggesting that BMI be employed in conjunction with other methods when assessing overweight/obesity in these groups. Finally, although stunting and overweight/obesity were both common in this study, at the individual level height z scores were positively correlated to z scores of various measures of adiposity.

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