Title
Trajectories of aggressive and depressive symptoms in male and female overweight children: Do they share a common path or do they follow different routes?
Date Issued
01 January 2018
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Publisher(s)
Public Library of Science
Abstract
The prevalence of childhood overweight is a major social and public health issue, and primary assessment should focus on early and middle childhood, because weight gain in these phases constitutes a strong predictor of subsequent negative outcomes. Studies on community samples have shown that growth curves may follow linear or non-linear trajectories from early to middle childhood, and can differ based on sex. Overweight children may exhibit a combination of physiological and psychosocial issues, and several studies have demonstrated an association between overweight and internalizing/externalizing behavior. Nevertheless, there is a dearth of longitudinal studies on depressive and aggressive symptoms in children with high BMI. This study adopted a growth curve modeling over three phases to: (1) describe BMI trajectories in two groups of children aged 2–8 (overweight and normal weight) from a community sample; (2) describe the developmental trajectories of children’s aggressive and depressive symptoms from 2 to 8 years of age. Results indicate higher BMI in 2-year-old girls, with males catching up with them by age 8. While overweight females’ BMIs were consistently high, males’ increased at 5 and 8 years. The mean scores for aggressive symptoms at T1 (2 years of age) were the same in all subjects, but a significant deviation occurred from T1 to T2 in both samples, in divergent directions. With regards to children’s depressive symptoms, the two groups had different starting points, with normal weight children scoring lower than overweight youths. Overweight females showed lower depressive scores than overweight males at T1, but they surpassed boys before T2, and showed more maladaptive symptoms at T3. This study solicits professionals working in pediatric settings to consider overweight children’s psychopathological risk, and to be aware that even when children’s BMI does not increase from 2 to 8 years, their psychopathological symptoms may grow in intensity.
Volume
13
Issue
1
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Ciencias médicas, Ciencias de la salud
Psicología
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85040051608
PubMed ID
Source
PLoS ONE
ISSN of the container
19326203
Sponsor(s)
This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (grant no. THINLINE—GA15-05696S) to CAA and the Institute for Research on Children, Youth and Family, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University to SJ. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus