Stress experienced by a mother during early, critical periods of her child's development can have negative impacts on the child's physiology. However, the factors that mediate these negative impacts are not fully understood. This doctoral dissertation project will use well-characterized samples of mothers and offspring to investigate relationships among external stressors, maternal responses to stress, sociocultural factors that impact the perception of stress, and offspring high body mass index in early childhood. This project will advance our knowledge about the complex interplay among human biological adaptation, culture, and environment, and will potentially inform public health strategies regarding early life obesity. The project will also support graduate student training and international research collaborations.
The primary objective of this study is to analyze the risks and protective factors that may mediate or moderate the development of early childhood obesity and to explore the lived experience of stress in a sample of New Zealand mothers. The research uses a biocultural mixed-methods approach. First, the researchers will use structural equation modeling to examine pathways among stress, potential risk and protective factors, and early childhood body mass index using a large (n=5,839) representative data set from New Zealand. The researchers will then employ qualitative methods with an ethnically-diverse sample of New Zealand mothers (n=70) to explore the lived experience of stress in this population. The findings from this project will contribute to our growing understanding of the biological consequences of stress in all human populations.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.