Childhood Emotional Neglect Related to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms and Body Mass Index in Adult Women

Abstract

The relationships among the severity of childhood abuse and neglect, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and adult obesity were investigated. 207 women (M age = 26.5 yr., SD = 6.7) completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Millon Clinician Multiaxial Inventory, and a demographic questionnaire. Analyses of variance indicated that women who reported moderate-to-extreme emotional neglect (n = 71) had significantly higher PTSD scores and increased BMI compared to women who reported low emotional neglect (n = 84). Women who reported severe sexual or emotional abuse also had higher PTSD scores, but no relationship was found with BMI when other factors were controlled. Although PTSD scores and self-reported severity of childhood emotional neglect were strongly correlated (r = .61, p < .001), PTSD was not found to be a mediating factor in obesity in women who reported childhood emotional neglect, although depression was.

Multi-type Childhood Abuse, Strategies of Coping, and Psychological Adaptations in Young Adults

“…Based on these findings, one can presume that adult individuals who were sexually abused in childhood are more likely to suffer from sexual dysfunction, ie, sexual identity problems and disorders in sexual functioning. Indeed, several studies support a relationship between sexual disorders and sexual abuse in childhood (15,55,(63)(64)(65)(66)(67)(68). Fur-thermore, our study confirms previous findings (15,69,70) about the association between sexual abuse in childhood and somatic symptoms in adult age.…”

“…DePanfilis and Zuravin (53) argue that child neglect is more likely to be repeated than other types of abuse, and therefore its consequences are at least equal to those of other types of abuse. Previous research has found an association between neglect and trauma symptoms (54,55), depression (49,56), and anxiety (57), but not between neglect and somatic symptoms or sexual problems. Differences between the results of this study and previous research can be explained by the fact that this study also found some overlaps between different types of abuse.…”

Interaction between perceived maternal care, anxiety symptoms, and the neurobehavioral response to palatable foods in adolescents

“…Our results correspond with D' Argenio et al (2009), who suggested that not only sexual abuse (Alvarez et al, 2007;Mamun et al, 2007;Noll et al, 2007) or poverty (Giskes et al, 2008;Kestila et al, 2009), but also less severe forms of early life stress are linked to the risk of developing obesity later in life (D'Argenio et al, 2009). Our findings also correspond with other studies showing that emotional abuse and neglect, particularly during infancy, are linked to obesity in adult men and women (Gunstad et al, 2006;Pederson & Wilson, 2009). Finally, Pompili et al (2014) showed that a history of moderate-to-severe childhood maltreatment is associated with distinct depressive constructs such as alcohol and/or drug abuse, as well as with suicidal behaviors.…”

Childhood maltreatment profile in a clinical population in China: A further analysis with existing data of an epidemiologic survey

“…In particular, negative psychological impacts on an individual with a history of CM are detrimental [3, 12, 13]. For example, there are strong evidence that put forward the associations between childhood traumatic experiences (in terms of abuse and neglect) with alcohol and drug dependence [14, 15], post-traumatic stress disorder [16, 17], depression [18, 19], and psychosis [20-23]. The role of childhood traumatic experiences leading to different types of PDs, such as borderline PD [24-26] antisocial PD [27, 28], schizotypal PD [29], and avoidant PD [30] is also evident.…”