Developmental Trajectories of BMI During Childhood: Role of Household Intimate Partner Violence

Objective: Evidence suggests that childhood adversity, including violence exposure, may contribute to obesity in later life. Our goal was to characterize developmental trajectories of BMI in children followed through adolescence to assess the relationship between timing of exposure to household intimate partner violence (IPV) and BMI trajectories.

Research Methods and Procedures: Participants consisted of 6700 girls and 5717 boys in the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS), who were 9 to 14 years old at baseline in 1996 and followed to 2003. Repeated measures of weight and height were used to calculate BMI trajectories with a general growth mixture modeling approach. Household IPV was measured by maternal report of IPV at each calendar year, which was then linked to the child's age.

Results: Four distinct BMI trajectories were identified separately for girls and for boys: 1) normal-growth, 2) normal-to-obese, 3) obese-to-overweight, and 4) consistent-obese. Compared to boys not exposed to violence, boys exposed to household IPV before age 5 were at increased risk of being in the normal-to-obese group [OR=2.2; 95% CI=1.4-3.4] and boys exposed to household IPV between 6-11 were at increased risk of consistent-obese (OR=2.3; 95% CI=1.0-5.3) after adjusting for a number of confounders. Among the girls, no relationship was observed between household IPV and BMI trajectories.

Discussion: These data suggest that exposure to household IPV may increase the risk of being in a high-risk obesity trajectory among boys. This relationship was not evident among the girls.