Association of Psychological Resilience With Healthy Lifestyle and Body Weight in Young Adulthood

Abstract

PurposeChildhood adversity is associated with adverse health outcomes, in part owing to its effects on healthy lifestyle. We examined whether psychological resilience to adversity may promote healthier behaviors and body weight in young adulthood. MethodsData are from the Growing Up Today Study, a longitudinal cohort of young adults (n = 3,767) who are children of participants of the Nurses' Health Study II, a separate longitudinal cohort. After characterizing psychological resilience as per levels of adversity exposure before the age of 18 years and young adult psychological health (defined by a composite of low psychological distress and high positive affect), we derived a categorical measure by cross-classifying adversity (exposed vs. unexposed) and psychological health (high vs. lower). We considered five outcomes self-reported at baseline (2010) and five years later: healthy body weight and four healthy lifestyle components including being a nonsmoker, moderate alcohol consumption, regular physical activity, and healthy diet. Poisson regression models evaluated associations of each outcome with psychological resilience, comparing psychologically resilient individuals with those who were not resilient or who were unexposed to adversity, adjusting for relevant covariates. ResultsWe did not identify differences between psychologically resilient individuals and those unexposed to adversity who were psychologically healthy with respect to meeting recommendations for most healthy lifestyle components and associations were largely stable over time. Across most outcomes, nonresilient individuals were less likely to be healthy relative to resilient individuals. ConclusionsPsychological resilience may disrupt negative effects of childhood adversity on having a healthy lifestyle in young adulthood.