Childhood Reports of Food Neglect and Impulse Control Problems and Violence in Adulthood.

Michael Vaughn,Jin Huang,Christopher Salas-Wright,Sandra Naeger,Alex Piquero

doi:10.3390/ijerph13040389

Abstract

Food insecurity and hunger during childhood are associated with an array of developmental problems in multiple domains, including impulse control problems and violence. Unfortunately, extant research is based primarily on small convenience samples and an epidemiological assessment of the hunger-violence link is lacking. The current study employed data from Wave 1 (2001–2002) and Wave 2 (2004–2005) of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). The NESARC is a nationally representative sample of non-institutionalized U.S. residents aged 18 years and older. Participants who experienced frequent hunger during childhood had significantly greater impulsivity, worse self-control, and greater involvement in several forms of interpersonal violence. These effects were stronger among whites, Hispanics, and males. The findings support general theoretical models implicating impulse control problems as a key correlate of crime and violence and add another facet to the importance of ameliorating food neglect in the United States.

Highlights

The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that more than 15 million children in the United States reside in households facing challenges related to food security
Controlling for sociodemographic, parental, and mental health confounds, we found a significant association between experiences of hunger and interpersonal violence among non-Hispanic whites (AOR = 2.29, 95% CI = 1.86–2.82) and Hispanics (AOR = 2.57, 95% CI = 2.21–3.00), but no significant association was identified for African-Americans (AOR = 0.75, 95% CI = 0.53–1.06)
The present study findings point to a link between frequent childhood hunger and involvement in interpersonal violence

Summary

Introduction

Food security refers to the consistent access to sufficient and adequate nutrition and the lack thereof—experiencing frequent hunger—has manifold implications for healthy child and adult development [1,2,3,4,5] It is well-documented that inadequate nutrition stemming from food insecurity is associated with outcomes such as poor health, asthma and other chronic health conditions, and frequent hospitalizations as well as challenges with respect to neuro-cognitive, academic, psycho-emotional, and social skills development [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. A recent study reported evidence that sleep deprivation was significantly associated with childhood low self-control and indirectly related to delinquency via these same impulse control mechanisms [19]

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion