Eating behaviors as pathways from early childhood adversity to adolescent cardiometabolic risk.

Objective: To identify specific eating behavior pathways that mediate associations between financial difficulties, negative life events, and maternal depressive symptoms from 0 to 5 years and cardiometabolic risk in adolescence.

Method: Hypotheses were tested with data from birth to age 15 years using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a birth cohort in the United Kingdom ( = 3,887 for current analyses). Mothers reported on financial difficulties, negative life events, and maternal depressive symptoms at multiple points from 0 to 5 years and reported on worry about child overeating at 8 years.