ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Childhood maltreatment is associated with adult obesity, but there is conflicting evidence regarding the relationship between childhood maltreatment and obesity during adolescence. OBJECTIVES: To compare the body mass index (BMI) trajectory of adolescents with a specific type of maltreatment (sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse or neglect) to adolescents with another type of maltreatment (maltreated sample n = 303) and to a comparison group (n = 151). METHODS: Individual growth models were used to estimate average growth trajectories of BMI percentile separately by sex (ages 9 to 22 years). Unconditional and conditional linear and quadratic growth models were estimated and maltreatment types were added before including covariates (ethnicity, anxiety, depression and pubertal stage). RESULTS: BMI growth trajectories of sexually abused girls and neglected girls were significantly different from comparison girls. Comparison girls had a growth trajectory that reached its apex at 15 years and then began to decline, whereas sexually abused girls and neglected girls had lower BMI than comparison girls until age 16-17 years when their BMI was higher than comparison girls. CONCLUSIONS: Late adolescence appears to be the developmental period during which differences in BMI percentiles become pronounced between girls with sexual abuse or with neglect vs. comparison girls.