Childhood abuse victimization, stress-related eating, and weight status in young women

Abstract Purpose Abuse in childhood predicts stress-related overeating and excess weight gain in young women. We investigated whether two stress-related overeating behaviors—binge eating and coping-motivated eating—explain childhood abuse associations with weight status in young women. Methods Analyses included 4377 women participating in the Growing Up Today Study, a longitudinal cohort of youth enrolled at age 9 to 14 years. We used marginal structural models to estimate the effects of abuse before age 11 years on weight status at age 22 to 29 years with and without adjustment for binge eating and coping-motivated eating. Results Women with severe physical, sexual, and emotional abuse had early adult body mass indexes (BMIs) that were 0.74 kg/m2 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.15–1.33), 0.69 (95% CI: −0.46 to 1.83), and 0.85 (95% CI: 0.24–1.45) kg/m2 higher, respectively, than those without abuse. Adjustment for coping-motivated eating attenuated the excess BMI associated with severe physical abuse, but no other important attenuations were found. Conclusions Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse before age 11 years were associated with higher early adult weight status, although the sexual abuse estimate was not statistically significant. Evidence for a role of stress-related eating in abuse–BMI associations was limited and inconsistent across abuse types.