Venue: The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, 1 Towerview Drive, Durham, NC 27708-0120

 

Presentation

Early Childhood Poverty and Adult Body Mass Index

Authors:

Presenter: Kathleen Ziol-Guest (Harvard School of Public Health)

Discussant: John Cawley (Cornell University)

Session: Taking the Long View: Health, Socioeconomic Status and Health Insurance in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)

Room: Classroom E

When: Monday 8:30 a.m. - 10 a.m.

Context: The prevalence of overweight and obesity among U.S. adults has reached epidemic proportions. Various childhood socioeconomic conditions are correlated with adult health and weight problems, but it is uncertain how low income during particular childhood periods affects weight in adulthood. Identification of such specific interventions for low-income children in the United States and elsewhere.

Objective: To examine the association between poverty in early and later childhood and adult Body Mass Index.

Design, Setting, and Participants: A nationally representative sample of men and women from the 2005 Panel Study of Income Dynamics, born between 1968 and 1975 and observed in annual interviews between their prenatal year and adulthood were examined. Multivariate regression techniques are used to estimate the relationship between income in different stages of childhood and adult body mass index.

Main Outcome Measure: Body Mass Index calculated from self-reported height and weight in adulthood, overweight defined as body mass index at or above 25, and obesity defined as body mass index at or above 30. Results: Average annual family income between the prenatal year and age two, for children whose family incomes averaged less than $25,000, was significantly associated with adult BMI, while average annual family income between ages three and five and between ages six and 15 was not. In regressions that controlled for income in other childhood periods plus an extensive set of family factors at birth, a $10,000 annual increase in income for low-income children between the prenatal year and age two was associated with a 2.79 point reduction in BMI in adulthood (95% CI –4.96 to -.63, P = .01), a 42 percent (P = .11) reduced risk of overweight and a 47 percent (P = .09) reduced risk of obesity.

Conclusions: With controls for other family characteristics, including income in other periods of childhood, our results indicated that economic conditions in the earliest period of life (between the prenatal year and age two) may play an important role in eventual anthropometric measures. Mediational models could not be estimated to establish the pathways by which these effects occur.