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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: AJPH.2007.130575v1 99/3/527    most recent Submit a response View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Ziol-Guest, K. M. Articles by Kalil, A. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Ziol-Guest, K. M. Articles by Kalil, A. Related Collections Obesity, Overweight, Underweight Socioeconomic Factors

Kathleen M. Ziol-Guest, PhD, MPA, Greg J. Duncan, PhD and Ariel Kalil, PhD

At the time of the study Kathleen M. Ziol-Guest was with the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, and Greg J. Duncan was with Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. Ariel Kalil is with the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Kathleen M. Ziol-Guest, Institute for Children and Poverty, 36 Cooper Square, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10003 (e-mail: kziol-guest{at}icpny.org).

Objectives. We estimated associations between poverty in early, middle, and later childhood and adult body mass index to further elucidate the effects of socioeconomic status on health.

Methods. We conducted secondary analyses of data from men and women (N = 885) born between 1968 and 1975 who were tracked between their prenatal and birth years and adulthood in the nationally representative Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We used multivariate regression techniques and spline models to estimate the relationship between income in different stages of childhood and adult body mass index, overweight, and obesity. We controlled for other family characteristics, including income in other periods of childhood.

Results. Mean annual family income in the prenatal and birth years for children whose annual family incomes averaged less than $25 000 was significantly associated with increased adult body mass index, but mean annual family income between 1 and 5 years of age and between 6 and 15 years of age was not.

Conclusions. Our results indicated that economic conditions in the earliest period of life (during the prenatal and birth years) may play an important role in eventual anthropometric measures.