Maternal exposure to stress and child risk of obesity: a cross-sectional study of women and their children aged 5-15 years living in a deprived urban Peruvian community
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Objectives
Maternal stress during childhood may contribute to childhood obesity through effects on parenting, parent–child relationships, or children’s stress responses. However, evidence is largely based on maternal self-reported stress, while studies using physiological measures like cortisol have found inconsistent associations. Most studies have been conducted in high-income settings, limiting generalisability. Using psychological and physiological stress markers, this cross-sectional study evaluates maternal stress exposures and child risk of obesity in 475 pairs of Peruvian women and their children, age 5-15 years, in a disadvantaged urban area.
Methods
Maternal stress exposures included mental distress (12-item General Health Questionnaire categorising moderate/high vs no/low distress) and allostatic load (AL; lower/moderate/higher AL assessed from Latent Profile Analysis of hair cortisol, BMI, waist circumference and blood pressure). Child outcomes included BMI and waist circumference-for-age z scores (BAZ and WCAZ). Linear regression analyses were conducted, adjusting for confounders.
Results
Versus mothers with no/low distress, those with moderate/high distress had children with 0.40 (95% CI: −0.66,−0.13) and 0.32 lower (−0.53,−0.11) child BAZ and WCAZ respectively. Versus lower AL mothers, moderate AL mothers had children with 1.15 (0.41,1.88) and 0.74 (0.20,1.28) greater BAZ and WCAZ while higher AL mothers had children with 1.43 (0.95,1.92) and 0.91 (0.50,1.32) greater BAZ and WCAZ respectively. Higher maternal cortisol independently predicted child adiposity.
Conclusions
Children of mothers with higher AL were at greater risk of overweight or obesity, which may add to the rising burdens of non-communicable diseases in resource-constrained settings as well as related social, economic, and public health costs.
