Childhood trauma in overweight and obese females with food addiction / Ameera Ibrahim Ali Fares ; Supervised Mohammed Ezzat Arafa , Rania Mamdouh Mohammed , Ahmed Mohammed Abdelsalam

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Neuropsychiatry

Objective: Childhood trauma (CT) is considered a major risk factor for several disorders as well as for the development of eating psychopathology and adult obesity.The main aims of the current study were to assess in overweight and obese females the association between childhood trauma and food addiction, and to study the relation between the severity of food addiction and the severity of childhood trauma and higher BMI. It also aimed to study the association between childhood trauma and early onset obesity (before age of 18). background It is known fact that obesity is a major public health problem and the prevalence of obesity is increasing in all countries. One of the major eating disorders that contribute to obesity is food addiction (FA), which is a behavioral addiction that is characterized by compulsive consumption of palatable foods (e.g. high fat and high sugar food) which markedly activate the reward system in humans despite adverse consequences. methods The sample of the study consisted of two groups with 30 patients in each group.The study compared childhood trauma inoverweight or obese patients with food addiction in (group I) to a controlgroup ofoverweight or obese females without the diagnosis of food addiction (group II). It also assessed the association of psychiatric disorders in bothgroups. Participants were recruited from two outpatient clinics in Kasr Al-Ainy Hospital, Faculty of Medicin, Cairo University (Bariatric surgery clinic and Nutrition clinic).All participants were evaluated for body weight (kg) and height (m), and BMI was calculated. Patients in both groups were subjected to psychiatric assessment using (Kasr Al Ainy semi structured psychiatric interview), assessment of food addiction using Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) and of childhood trauma using Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) then were assessed usingStructured Clinical Interview for DSM IV-TR Axis I Disorders and Axis II Disorders (SCID I & II) to evaluate the associated psychiatric disorders. Results: The association between FA and CT remained significant after controlling of potential confounding variables (P=0.006).The results showed positive correlation between food addiction and Emotional Abuse (P=0.048) and Emotional Neglect (P=0.014). Comparison of the psychiatric comorbidities between the 2 groups showed that 23.3% of the cases group had panic disorder comorbidity compared to control group (P=0.011)

Issued also as CD