Early Life Home Environment and Obesity in a Mexican-American Birth Cohort: The CHAMACOS Study.

OBJECTIVE: Little is known about the impact of the home environment on biomarkers of obesity, such as adipokines, in children. In this study, we examined the relationship of maternal depressive symptoms and potentially protective social factors, including maternal support and the home learning environment, with BMI and adipokines.

METHODS: Data were obtained from 326 Mexican-American participants from the CHAMACOS cohort. Plasma adipokine levels were assessed in 326 children by enzyme-linked immunoassay at birth or ages 5, 9, or 14. Maternal depressive symptoms were evaluated using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale when children were 1, 3.5, 7, and 9 years old; social support was assessed by the Duke-UNC Questionnaire at ages 1 and 5; and home learning environment by the Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment (H.O.M.E.) at 6 months and 1, 2, 3.5, 7, 9, and 10.5 years of age.

RESULTS: Age was significantly associated with adiponectin (B=-5.0, standard error=0.2) and leptin (B=0.01, standard error=0.003) levels. Individual time point analyses identified significant positive associations of H.O.M.E. scores in childhood with adiponectin at ages 9 (H.O.M.E. score; age 3.5: B=0.9, p=0.04) and 14 (H.O.M.E. score; age 7: B=0.6, p=0.02, age 9: B=0.6, p=0.05, age 10.5: B=0.5, p=0.04). We observed significant relationships of maternal depressive symptoms at age 9 with adiponectin and BMI z-score at age 14 (B=-0.2, p=0.003 and B=0.02, p=0.002, resp.), which were confirmed in longitudinal models.

CONCLUSIONS: This study adds new evidence that adverse and protective aspects of the home environment could lead to altered obesity status in children.This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially without permission from the journal.