Elsevier

General Hospital Psychiatry

Volume 35, Issue 6, November–December 2013, Pages 671-673
General Hospital Psychiatry

Short Communication
PTSD and obesity in the Detroit neighborhood health study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2013.07.015Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been associated with adverse health consequences, including overweight, obesity and cardiovascular disease. African Americans, particularly women, have among the highest rates of overweight and obesity in the U.S. compared to other racial groups. High rates of violence exposure in urban African Americans may lead to the development of PTSD and increase risk for overweight and obesity. The current study investigated the comorbidity of lifetime PTSD and overweight/obesity in a population-based African American, urban sample.

Method

Data were from 463 African American male and female participants of the Detroit Neighborhood Health Study. Multivariable logistic regression models estimated the impact of lifetime PTSD on risk for overweight and obesity.

Results

The prevalence of obesity was significantly higher among women (60.9%) than men (33.1%; P< .001). In sex-stratified models, after controlling for demographic variables, PTSD was associated obesity (odds ratio=4.4, 95% confidence interval: 1.3, 14.3) only among women.

Conclusions

PTSD was associated with obesity, after controlling for confounding variables, among African American women. Results underscore the contribution of PTSD to obesity among African American women and the importance of addressing the physical health correlates of women with PTSD.

Section snippets

Participants

Data were analyzed from a subsample of the Detroit Neighborhood Health Study (DNHS), a longitudinal investigation of a predominantly African American adult sample in urban Detroit [7]. The current investigation included 179 African American men and 284 African American women with BMI data.

Measures

A modified version of the PTSD Checklist–Civilian Version (PCL-C; Ref. [14]) was used to assess lifetime PTSD symptoms [1]. Lifetime PTSD cases endorsed ≥ 1 re-experiencing, ≥ 3 avoidance/numbing and ≥ 2

Descriptives

See Table 1. Participants' mean age was 56.7 years. A significantly higher proportion of women than men were obese (χ2= 35.2, df= 1, P< .001). A marginally significantly higher proportion of women than men reported lifetime PTSD (χ2= 3.5, df= 1, P= .06).

PTSD–obesity comorbidity

In Model 1, there was a marginally significant association between lifetime PTSD and obesity [odds ratio (OR)=2.3, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.0, 5.5] but not overweight (OR=1.5, 95% CI: 0.5, 4.0) among women. PTSD was not associated with

Discussion

Over half of the women in our population-based sample of African Americans were obese, compared to nearly one-third of men. Among women but not men, PTSD was associated with obesity after adjusting for covariates.

Results were consistent with previous findings that African American women are at high risk for overweight and obesity [4]. PTSD was associated with obesity among women but not men, consistent with prior studies of predominantly white European and American samples [10], [12]. Several

Acknowledgments

Karen S. Mitchell's contribution to this work was funded by a National Institute of Mental Health award K01MH093750. Allison E. Aiello's contribution to this work was funded by R01DA022720, R01DA022720-S1 and R01DA022720 (PhenX Supplement). Karestan C. Koenen's contribution to this work was funded by MH093612.

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Conflicts of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest.

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