CHILDHOOD BULLYING VICTIMIZATION AND SUBSEQUENT OVERWEIGHT IN YOUNG ADULTHOOD: A COHORT STUDY

Objective To test whether bullied children have an elevated risk of being overweight in young adulthood, and whether this association is: (1) consistent with a dose-response relationship namely its strength increases with the chronicity of victimization; (2) consistent across different measures of overweight; (3) specific to bullying and not explained by co-occurring maltreatment; (4) independent of key potential confounders; and (5) consistent with the temporal sequence of bullying preceding overweight. Method A representative birth cohort of 2,232 children was followed to age 18 years as part of the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study. Childhood bullying victimization was reported by mothers and children during primary school and early secondary school. At age 18, we assessed a categorical measure of overweight, body mass index (BMI), and waist-hip ratio. Indicators of overweight were also collected at ages 10 and 12. Co-twin body-mass and birth weight were used to index genetic and fetal liability to overweight, respectively. Conclusion Childhood bullying victimization predicts overweight in young adulthood. Results are presented as odds ratios (for overweight) or unstandardized regression coefficients (for BMI and waist-hip ratio) with 95% confidence intervals. Values for waist-hip ratio were multiplied by 100 for these analyses. Data on covariates were missing from between <1% (child IQ, food insecurity, and weight rating at age 12) to 7% (birth weight), with an average of 2.9% missing. We replaced missing values for covariates with means of the observed data, resulting in N=1,976 for analyses on overweight and BMI, and N=1,987 for analyses on waist-hip ratio. Sensitivity analyses showed similar findings regardless of whether we replaced missing data, conducted a complete case analysis, or used listwise deletion. Results are presented as odds ratios (for overweight) or unstandardized regression coefficients (for BMI and waist-hip ratio) with 95% confidence intervals. Values for waist-hip ratio were multiplied by 100 for these analyses.

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