Understanding the association between early life adversity and obesity during adulthood

The prevalence of obesity has been on the rise among Canadians. It is important to understand risk factors for obesity in adulthood, as obesity may lead to the development of other chronic diseases. According to the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) framework, the development of chronic diseases, including obesity, may begin as early as childhood. The DOHaD framework states nutritional patterns and stress throughout the life course may help to explain how exposures in early life lead to adulthood disease. Individuals who experience early life adversity, which includes significant exposure to physical, emotional or sexual abuse, may be at a greater risk of disease development during adulthood. Using the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, we will examine early life adversity and obesity in adulthood. We will also explore the mechanistic pathway of this association by exploring nutritional risk, food security and allostatic load among different measures of obesity.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) were prevalent among Canadian adults in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, with 66% of adults reporting at least one adverse experience before the age of 18. We found that adversity during early life was strongly associated with adulthood obesity, meaning people who reported more ACEs were more likely to develop obesity during adulthood, defined by both body mass index and waist circumference. For instance, adults with 4-8 ACEs were 54% more likely to develop obesity defined by BMI and 30% more likely to develop obesity defined by waist circumference, compared to those who reported none. We did not find stress or nutrition to explain how ACEs leads to the development of obesity in adulthood. This may be related to the measures of stress and nutrition used in the study. Further research is needed to continue to explore and understand the mechanistic pathway between ACEs and adulthood obesity, as this can be used to inform both prevention strategies and interventions.