References

Allen K, Trethewey SP, Mathews F, Price A, Newlove-Delgado T Experiences of commissioning services for child and adolescent mental health in England (UK): a qualitative framework analysis. BMJ Open. 2024; 14:(10) https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2024-086403

Blundell E, De Stavola BL, Kellock MD Longitudinal pathways between childhood BMI, body dissatisfaction, and adolescent depression: an observational study using the UK millennium cohort study. Lancet Psychiatr. 2024; 11:(1)P47-P55 https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(23)00365-6

Dye CK, Alschuler DM, Wu H Maternal adverse childhood experiences and biological aging during pregnancy and in newborns. JAMA Netw Open. 2024; 7:(8) https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.27063

Espinosa Dice AL, Lawn RB, Ratanatharathorn A Childhood maltreatment and health in the UK Biobank: triangulation of outcome-wide and polygenic risk score analyses. BMC Med. 2024; 22:(1) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-024-03360-9

Stevens AJ, Boukari Y, English S, Kadir A, Kumar BN, Devakumar D Discriminatory, racist and xenophobic policies and practice against child refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants in European health systems. Lancet Reg Health Eur. 2024; 41 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2023.100834

Research roundup

02 November 2024
Volume 1 · Issue 3

Abstract

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles are presented. The aim is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

This research aimed to determine whether high body mass index (BMI) in children may contribute to depression in adolescence, potentially as a result of body dissatisfaction. In this study, Blundell et al (2024) note that the proportion of adolescents with symptoms related to depression has increased over the last two decades and that high BMI is a known risk factor for depressive symptoms.

The authors examined the longitudinal associations between BMI at age 7 years, body dissatisfaction at age 11 years, and depression at age 14 years. The Millennium Cohort Study was used to extract the data of a representative cohort of children from the general population in the UK, who were born between 1 September 2000 and 11 January 2002 (n=13 135). The researchers analysed the following four objectives:

The sample was roughly equal in terms of the proportion of boys (n=6624; 50.4%) and girls (n=6511; 49.6%) participants. At baseline, the mean age of participants was 7.2 years. For objectives 1 and 2, the researchers found that an increase in BMI at age 7 years was associated with greater body dissatisfaction at age 11 years and greater depressive symptoms at age 14 years. For objective 3, greater body dissatisfaction at age 11 years was also associated with greater depressive symptoms at age 14 years.

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