Gender, stress in childhood and adulthood, and trajectories of change in body mass

Abstract

Despite substantial evidence of the linkage between stress and weight change, previous studies have not considered how stress trajectories that begin in childhood and fluctuate throughout adulthood may work together to have long-term consequences for weight change. Working from a stress and life course perspective, we investigate the linkages between childhood stress, adulthood stress and trajectories of change in body mass (i.e., Body Mass Index, BMI) over time, with attention to possible gender variation in these processes. Data are drawn from a national longitudinal survey of the Americans’ Changing Lives (N=3,617). Results from growth curve analyses suggest that both women and men who experienced higher levels of childhood stress also report higher levels of stress in adulthood. At the beginning of the study period, higher levels of adulthood stress are related to greater BMI for women but not men. Moreover, women who experienced higher levels of childhood stress gained weight more rapidly throughout the 15-year study period than did women who experienced less childhood stress, but neither childhood nor adulthood stress significantly modified men’s BMI trajectories. These findings add to our understanding of how childhood stress—a more important driver of long-term BMI increase than adult stress—reverberates throughout the life course to foster cumulative disadvantage in body mass, and how such processes differ for men and women. Results highlight the importance of considering sex-specific social contexts of early childhood in order to design effective clinical programs that prevent or treat overweight and obesity later in life.

A model of neglect during postnatal life heightens obesity-induced hypertension and is linked to a greater metabolic compromise in female mice

“…These alterations have been often linked to the early life dysregulation of the sympathetic nerve activity (SNA) and/or the HPA axis 52–54 . Despite most of these studies have not been designed to test sex-specific effects on the cardiovascular and metabolic risk, a growing body of evidence shows that long-term effects of ELS may impact women’s susceptibility to gain weight and develop insulin resistance at a greater fashion 23,55–57 ; however, the potential origins for this predisposition remain unclear.…”

“…Epidemiological studies identified the exposure to all these forms of early life stress (ELS) as an independent risk factor for type 2 diabetes and ischemic heart disease, in part by increasing body mass index (BMI) and systolic blood pressure (SBP) 8–11 . Findings from the Georgia Stress and Heart Study (GSH) including 213 African Americans and 181 European Americans, revealed that individuals exposed to multiple ELS factors display a greater increase in blood pressure (BP) levels compared to control individuals in a 23-year follow up period 12,13 .…”

“…Also, stress-related disorders (e.g., depression and anxiety), obesity and hypertension are comorbidities observed more frequently in women beginning in adolescence 19–22 . Importantly, a growing body of evidence suggests that long-term effects of ELS may impact women’s susceptibility to gain weight and develop insulin resistance in a greater fashion than men 8,23 . Yet, an established experimental paradigm to determine the sex-specific effects of ELS on the origins of obesity-induced hypertension is missing, demanding the validation of models to decipher the causative mechanisms of this relationship.…”

The Relationship between Stress and Severe Obesity: A Case-Control Study

“…Weight gain was detected extremely early in pregnancy. Liu and Umberson [29] found that children who experience more stress subsequently experience more stress as adults. Women have higher BMI than men.…”

Transgenerational aspects of former Swiss child laborers: do second generations suffer from their parents’ adverse early-life experiences?

“…Early-life adversity, such as trauma or maltreatment, can exert a “long shadow” (Brent & Silverstein, 2013), that is, a profound and, thus, long-lasting impact on the affected individual (Liu & Umberson, 2015; Springer, Sheridan, Kuo, & Carnes, 2003; Umberson, Williams, Powers, Liu, & Needham, 2005). The World Health Organization (WHO), which conducted a worldwide survey including over 50,000 respondents, concluded that childhood adversities are strongly associated with adult mental disorders and are found to predict 29.8% of DSM-IV disorders (Kessler et al, 2010).…”