Socioeconomic Disadvantage across the Life Course Is Associated with Diet Quality in Young Adulthood.

Erin L Faught,Sharon I Kirkpatrick,Dana Lee Olstad,David Hammond,Lindsay Mclaren,Leia M Minaker

doi:10.3390/nu11020242

Erin L Faught, Sharon I Kirkpatrick + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11020242

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Journal: Nutrients	Publication Date: Jan 22, 2019
Citations: 11	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Calgary, University of Waterloo

Abstract

Socioeconomic position (SEP) is a key determinant of diet quality across the life course. Young adulthood is a unique period of transition where dietary inequities between groups with lower and higher SEP may widen. This study investigated associations between SEP in both childhood and young adulthood and diet quality in young adulthood. Data from 1949 Canadian young adults aged 18–30 who participated in the Canada Food Study were analyzed. Healthy Eating Index–2015 (HEI-2015) scores were calculated based on one 24-hour dietary recall. Childhood and young adult SEP were represented by self-report of participants’ parent(s)’ and their own highest educational level, respectively. Linear regression was used to examine associations between childhood and adult SEP and adult HEI-2015 score. Mediation analyses examined whether adult SEP mediated the relationship between childhood SEP and adult HEI-2015 score. Lower SEPs in childhood and adulthood were each associated with lower HEI-2015 scores in young adulthood. Adult SEP mediated up to 13.0% of the association between childhood SEP and adult HEI-2015 scores. Study findings provide support for key life course hypotheses and suggest latent, pathway, and cumulative effects of SEP across the early life course in shaping the socioeconomic patterning of diet quality in young adulthood.

Highlights

Life course perspectives in epidemiology consider pathways through which aspects of socioeconomic position (SEP) independently and cumulatively shape health at all stages of development, and their implications for the creation, maintenance, and reproduction of health inequities both within and between societies [1,2]
The pathways hypothesis posits that the effect of disadvantage is indirect by setting individuals on adverse social trajectories that continue across the life course, where one negative factor increases the possibility of experiencing the same negative factor at a subsequent time point [2,6]
We examined whether adult SEP mediated associations between childhood SEP and HEI-2015 scores in young adulthood using methods described by Iacobucci [29] for mediation analyses involving categorical exposures, mediators, and/or outcomes

Summary

Introduction

Life course perspectives in epidemiology consider pathways through which aspects of socioeconomic position (SEP) independently and cumulatively shape health at all stages of development, and their implications for the creation, maintenance, and reproduction of health inequities both within and between societies [1,2]. Within the life course perspective, three principal hypotheses have been advanced to explain how health inequities are generated, reproduced, and maintained across the life course. These hypotheses are not mutually exclusive; rather, there is strong interdependence between them [3]. The pathways hypothesis posits that the effect of disadvantage is indirect by setting individuals on adverse social trajectories that continue across the life course, where one negative factor increases the possibility of experiencing the same negative factor at a subsequent time point (i.e., low childhood SEP increases the possibility of low adult SEP) [2,6]

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