Neglected Kids More Likely to Be Obese

A study at Temple University found that kids who are neglected are more likely to be obese. Abuse or maltreatment, on the other hand, didn't seem to affect their weight.

Temple's Robert Whitaker looked at data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study of nearly 5,000 children. At age three, children'sheight and weight were measured, while mothers answered a questionnaire about three types of child maltreatment in the prior year: neglect (such as not providing proper supervision for the child), corporal punishment (such as spanking the child on the bottom with a bare hand) and psychological aggression (such as threatening to spank the child but not actually doing it).

According to the article,

Eighteen percent of the children were obese, and the prevalence of any episode of neglect, corporal punishment or psychological aggression was 11 percent, 84 percent and 93 percent, respectively.

The odds of obesity were 50 percent greater in children who had experienced neglect, after controlling for the income and number of children in the household, the mothers' race/ethnicity, education, marital status, body mass index, prenatal smoking and age, and the children's sex and birth weight.

On the other hand, there was no correlation between corporal punishment or psychological aggression and overweight.

This makes sense if you look at overeating as a way to compensate for oxytocin deprivation. We tend to see overeating as a reaction to stress, which it is. But the stress of isolation is the lack of the ability to connect in an oxytocin-producing interaction with another person. (Although in prairie voles, isolated animals actually produce more oxytocin;  researchers at University of Illinois who did these experiments think this oxytocin production drives the animal to try harder to connect.  See The Amazing Vagus Nerve and The Sex/Food/Love Connection.

Eating -- or rather digesting food, especially fatty food -- sends signals from the gut to the brain via the vagus nerve. Those signals cause the hypothalamus to release oxytocin, which travels to the gut and creates the sensation of satiety.

It seems very likely that this oxytocin release also tweaks the neurons in the brain that create the pleasure in social interactions. So, it makes perfect sense that kids who are lonely for their mothers -- or for anyone to pay attention to them -- could use eating to take the place of social relationship.

Comments

[Field Notes]

"This makes sense if you look at overeating as a way to compensate for oxytocin deprivation."

I agree, but eating is a way to deal with many kinds of stress, which could include corporal punishment & psychological aggression. So, are you thinking that kids who are beaten and intimidated still receive loving touch? Maybe so, maybe not.

I think the real reason may have to do with social class. Obesity is a social class issue, as another study (which I blogged about some time ago) pointed out. I suspect beating and intimidation cut across social classes while neglect tends to happen in the same social class that experiences the most obesity.

[Susan Kuchinskas]

The study I wrote about compared the weights of kids who had suffered neglect, aggression or nothing. They specifically mentioned psychological aggression -- and found no correlation with overeating.

This is only one study, but it's their findings, not mine.

However, Allan Schore, an expert on the way mothering shapes the developing child's brain (and author of Affect Regulation and the Self, plus two sequels) says, based on his reviews of thousands of studies, that neglect is more harmful than abuse, because an abusive relationship is still a relationship, and we need relationship to thrive.

Issues of social class are a different lens with which to study and think about human behavior. I think it's oranges and apples to say that obesity is a social class issue rather than a stress issue. Either approach can provide insight and effective strategies to help.

But certainly neglect happens in every social class.

[m]

Geez -

Why do people like field notes assume there is ALWAYS, and ONLY, ONE AND ONLY ONE REASON FOR OBESITY ZOMG!11!?

What if a child in a family rises out of their economic class? Or becomes downwardly mobile? What if they have additional hormone difficulties (since there can be endocrine disruptors in just about everything you eat these days, including South Beach and Healthy Choice meals, consumed mostly by middle class women dieters)?

Spare me the narrowminded linear thinkers.

[Field Notes]

And spare me the people who make assumptions about others and resort to name calling.

I stand by my statement that obesity as a social class issue; I also recognize that many factors determine a person's weight.

You'd have known that, m, if you had bothered to read any of my health and diet posts before jumping to conclusions about me.