Early Childhood Poverty, Cumulative Risk Exposure, and Body Mass Index Trajectories Through Young Adulthood

Objectives We assessed whether cumulative risk exposure underlies the relation between early childhood poverty and body mass index (BMI) trajectories Methods We interviewed youths and their mothers in rural upstate New York (168 boys and 158 girls) from 1995 to 2006 when the youths were aged 9 13 and 17 years At each interview we calculated their BMI for age percentile Results Early childhood poverty predicted BMI growth trajectories from ages 9 to 17 years (b=3 64 SE=1 39 P< 01) Early childhood poverty also predicted changes in cumulative risk (b=0 31 SE=0 08 P< 001) Cumulative risk in turn predicted BMI trajectories (b=2 41 SE=0 75 P< 01) Finally after we controlled for cumulative risk the effect of early childhood poverty on BMI trajectories was no longer significant indicating that cumulative risk exposure mediated the relation between early childhood poverty and BMI trajectories (b=2 01 SE =0 94) Conclusions We show for the first time that early childhood poverty leads to accelerated weight gain over the course of childhood into early adulthood Cumulative risk exposure during childhood accounts for much of this accelerated weight gain (Am J Public Health 2010 100 2507-2512 doi 10 2105/AJPH 2009 184291)