Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology, Erasmus MC-University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Department of Public Health, University of Torino, Torino, Italy.
Int J Eat Disord. 2020 Oct;53(10):1709-1718. doi: 10.1002/eat.23351. Epub 2020 Jul 23.
Life adversities are recognized risk factors for eating disorders, in adolescents and adults, but whether such adversities are also associated with particular eating behaviors earlier in life is still unclear. Our aim was to assess whether experiencing adverse life events in early childhood is associated with emotional overeating and restrained eating at age 10.
Emotional overeating and restrained eating were assessed in 4,653 10-years-old children using the mother-reported Children's Eating Behavior Questionnaire and Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Mothers also reported on 24 different life events during childhood, those with moderate or severe impact being categorized as adverse life events. Regression analyses were performed to investigate relationships between adverse life events and eating behaviors in the total sample.
Adjusted for covariates, adverse life events were associated with more emotional overeating and restrained eating in children (p-values for trend <.01). Specifically, mothers who reported that their child experienced 3+ adverse life events, also reported significantly higher emotional overeating (B = 0.20; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.06-0.33) and restrained eating (B = 0.21; 95% CI, 0.08-0.33) in their children relative to children who did not experience adverse life events. These results did not differ by sex.
Our results based on mother-reported data suggest that children's experiences of life adversities are associated with emotional overeating and restrained eating at age 10 years. We recommend future prospective studies using multi-informant assessments of both adverse life events and eating behaviors to further describe the nature and developmental course of this relationship.
生活逆境被认为是青少年和成年人饮食失调的风险因素，但这些逆境是否也与生命早期的特定饮食行为有关尚不清楚。我们的目的是评估儿童早期经历不良生活事件是否与 10 岁时的情绪性暴食和节食行为有关。
使用母亲报告的儿童饮食行为问卷和荷兰饮食行为问卷评估了 4653 名 10 岁儿童的情绪性暴食和节食行为。母亲还报告了 24 种不同的童年生活事件，其中中度或严重影响的被归类为不良生活事件。回归分析用于调查总样本中不良生活事件与饮食行为之间的关系。
调整了协变量后，不良生活事件与儿童的情绪性暴食和节食行为呈正相关（趋势检验 p 值<.01）。具体来说，报告孩子经历了 3 次及以上不良生活事件的母亲，其孩子的情绪性暴食（B = 0.20；95%置信区间 [CI]，0.06-0.33）和节食行为（B = 0.21；95% CI，0.08-0.33）明显高于没有经历过不良生活事件的孩子。这些结果在性别之间没有差异。
基于母亲报告的数据，我们的结果表明，儿童经历的生活逆境与 10 岁时的情绪性暴食和节食行为有关。我们建议未来的前瞻性研究使用多信息源评估不良生活事件和饮食行为，以进一步描述这种关系的性质和发展过程。
