Abused mothers raise kids' obesity risk, say experts

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), U.S., found that kids of women who are abused by their spouses are more likely to be obese by age five and might also develop a host of other diseases later in life.

Reuters quoted lead researcher, Dr. Renee Boynton-Jarrett, BUSM, as saying, “It’s always sobering to see the vast impact that adversities in early life can have on long term health outcomes.”

Study details
For the study, researchers studied 1,595 children born between 1998 and 2000. They also interviewed kids’ mothers, when the kids were born and till they were five-year-old.

The children’s height and weight were measured at ages three and five.

Researchers found that of the total number of children, almost half (788 or 49.4 percent) had been exposed to family violence by the age of five.

Furthermore, another 263 children (16.5 percent) were found to be obese with a body mass index (BMI) higher than 95 percent of other kids of same age and gender.

Researchers also found that kids whose mothers were constantly abused by their partners had 80 percent tendency to be obese by age five in contrast to children whose mothers did not report any abuse.

The relation between obesity and abused mother was stronger in girls than in boys, found researchers.

Also, girls had a higher risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, and cancer later in life, the researchers noted.

The link was also evident among children whose mothers reportedly lived in ‘less safe’ neighborhoods.

The study results also found that most of the children were born to unmarried parents.

Domestic violence-obesity link
Boynton-Jarrett was quoted in U.S. News and World Report as saying, “If intimate partner violence influences maternal responsiveness to the socio-emotional needs of the child, then feeding practices may be influenced.”

Secondly, witnessing family violence may be linked to emotional distress and emotion-focused coping using food to self-soothe and adopt negative emotions, stated the researcher.

Other findings
According to previous studies, factors like child’s diet, time spent watching television, weight during birth, mother’s depression, and smoking during pregnancy have a great effect on childhood weight.

Study authors were cited in Reuters as saying, “These findings are absolutely applicable across socio-economic populations.”

The study appears in the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.