Habituation to a stressor predicts adolescents' adiposity

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives: Stress is associated with gains in adiposity. One factor that determines how much stress is experienced is how quickly an adolescent reduces responding (habituates) across repeated stressors. The purpose of this study was to determine the association of body mass index (BMI) percentile and the rate of habituation to a stressor. Design: Thirty-four adolescents completed anthropometric measures and a habituation protocol using a within study design. Methods: The habituation protocol measured the rate of decline in perceived stress and heart rate (HR) across four, two-minute serial subtraction trials. Results: Multivariate linear regression revealed the habituation rate of the HR predicted BMI percentile after adjusting for gender, socioeconomic status, and initial HR (β = 17.2, p < .04). Conclusions: Slower habituation to a laboratory stressor was associated with greater BMI percentiles in adolescents.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescence
• body mass index
• habituation
• obesity
• stress

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University at Buffalo under the University at Buffalo 2020 Interdisciplinary Research Development Fund. The funding source had no involvement in the study design; collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the article for publication.