Adverse childhood experiences and later life adult obesity and smoking in the United States.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Prior work demonstrates associations between physical abuse, household alcohol abuse, and household mental illness early in life with obesity and smoking. Studies, however, have not generally been in nationally representative samples and have not conducted analyses to account for bias in the exposure.

Methods

We used data from the 1979 U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to test associations between measures of adverse childhood experiences with obesity and smoking and used an instrumental variables approach to address potential measurement error of the exposure.

Results

Models demonstrated associations between childhood physical abuse and obesity at age 40 years (odds ratio [OR] 1.23; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.00-1.52) and ever smoking (OR 1.83;

SUBMITTER: Rehkopf DH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4966898 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature