"The study, conducted by scientists at Harvard Medical School, showed that women with a personal history of abuse are much more likely than other women to develop a food addiction.
For the study, a team led by Dr. Susan M. Mason, a postdoctoral fellow at the Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology, studied the link between childhood abuse and adult food addiction in 57,321 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study II....
"Dr. Mason's team found that food addiction was almost twice as common among women who indicated that they had experienced sexual or physical abuse before age 18 than among women with no history of childhood abuse, according to a written statement released in conjunction with the research. Women who had experienced both sexual and physical abuse were even more likely to have food addiction....
"One potential obstacle to identifying and implementing such strategies is the persistent stigma associated with abuse. As Dr. Vincent Felitti, co-principal investigator of the California-based Adverse Childhood Experiences Study and an expert on the connection between childhood trauma and adult health problems, told Syracuse.com in 2010, "the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and obesity later in life is major, but, since childhood sexual abuse is a topic protected by shame and social taboo, it is concealed by time and by secrecy."
Mason, et al. (2013). "Abuse victimization in childhood or adolescence and risk of food addiction in adult women." Obesity. DOI: 10.1002/oby.20500. Abstract.
See also:
Childhood abuse linked with food addiction in adult women
http://acesconnection.com/profiles/blogs/childhood-abuse-linked-with-food-addiction-in-adult-women
The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study — the largest, most important public health study you never heard of — began in an obesity clinic
Short on time? Use our Category Search page.
Comments (0)