Childhood Maltreatment and BMI Trajectories to Mid-Adult Life: Follow-Up to Age 50y in a British Birth Cohort

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 similar to 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 similar to 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 similar to 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 similar to 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.