Body mass index and internalizing symptoms from early childhood through early adolescence: Trend of codevelopment and directionality

Abstract

Background: Higher body mass index (BMI) and internalizing symptoms often codevelop with each other, and both of them have been widely linked to child later maladjustment. However, existing studies on the association between BMI and internalizing symptoms predominantly focus on the between-person association (i.e., the average association for a given group) and use continuous measures of BMI. To address these gaps, using approaches that can effectively partition within-person from between-person variation, this study aimed to delineate temporal dynamics (i.e., directionality) of the associations between BMI and internalizing symptoms (as continuous and clinical cut-off categorical measures for both of them). The trend of codevelopment between BMI and internalizing symptoms is also investigated. Methods: This study used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (ECLS:2011), a nationally representative birth cohort study in the United States. Participants were 17,552 children (48.78% female, M age = 5.6 years old at the first wave) who were assessed seven times from kindergarten through Grade 5. Results: Results of the random intercept, cross-lagged panel model suggested reciprocal within-person associations between BMI and internalizing symptoms from child 7.1 to 11.1 years old. Conclusions: Our findings highlight both the necessity of disaggregating between-person and within-person effects in cross-lagged associations between BMI and internalizing symptoms and the importance of interventions that target body weight and mental health issues in middle childhood to reduce the negative impact of both in the long run.

Co-Development and Bidirectional Associations Between Psychological Stress and Obesity in School-Aged Children: A Longitudinal Study in China

“…The level of PS in children with overweight/obesity may also be affected by the opinions of outside people, their views of the image, and psychological adjustment; these extrinsic perceptions may affect weight control and alter the PS associated with overweight/obesity (74). This study also found no gender differences in the longitudinal cross-lagged relationship between PS and childhood overweight/obesity, which is consistent with findings from similar studies (41), as well as a study of BMI and internalizing symptoms from early childhood through early adolescence (37). The lack of gender differences is thought to occur after early adolescence, and studies spanning childhood, adolescence, and even adulthood may help clarify the timing and underlying mechanisms (37,60).…”

The role of childhood obesity in socioeconomic inequalities in young adolescents’ mental health: differential exposure or differential impact?

“…We found evidence that a higher body fat percentage in low compared to high education and income groups explains part of the total disparity in internalizing symptoms. Obesity is more strongly associated with internalizing symptoms than with externalizing symptoms 38,39 , which might explain why we find contributions of differential exposure in internalizing symptoms only.…”

“…While it was reported before that obesity and mental health problems more often co-occur among households with a low as compared to high SEP 10 , our study is novel in that it finds evidence for the mediating role of obesity on socioeconomic inequalities in internalizing symptoms. The fact that differential exposure to obesity might explain the socioeconomic inequality in internalizing symptoms in childhood was indirectly suggested by Zhou et al 39 and Patalay et al 40 who found an attenuation of the link between obesity and internalizing symptoms after controlling for SEP and concluded that SEP is a shared origin for both. We add to this finding by quantifying the actual contribution of differential exposure to high body fat percentage to socioeconomic inequalities in young adolescents' mental health.…”

The effect of childhood socioeconomic status on depressive symptoms in middle-old age: the mediating role of life satisfaction

“…The value of each indicator was normalized as z-scores so that each component has a mean of 0 and a SD of 1. Finally, all the available z-scores of SES indicators were averaged to represent the score of childhood SES [ 25 ]. The higher the score was, the higher childhood SES.…”