Does Childhood Temperamental Activity Predict Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior over a 30-Year Period? Evidence from the Young Finns Study

We examined associations between childhood temperamental activity, physical activity (PA), and television (TV) viewing over a 30-year period. The participants (1220 boys and 1237 girls) were aged 3, 6, 9, and 12 years in 1980 and were followed until 2011. Temperamental activity was evaluated by participants' mothers at baseline. The PA was assessed based on maternal ratings of the child from ages 3 to 6 and via self-report age from the age of 9 across all measurements. TV viewing was assessed using self-reports taken from 2001 to 2011. The associations between temperamental activity and the level and change of PA and TV viewing were determined using linear growth modeling stratified by gender and age group. High temperamental activity assessed from ages 9 to 12 was associated with high levels of childhood PA in both genders, but with a steeper decline in PA levels during the first 9 years of follow-up in boys. High temperamental activity assessed from ages 3 to 6 was associated with the decline of PA from childhood to youth in girls. High childhood temperamental activity was associated with decreased levels of PA in adulthood in men, but not in women. The associations between childhood temperamental activity and TV viewing during adulthood seemed to be positive but not consistently significant in all age and gender groups. High temperamental activity may contribute to the development of a physically inactive lifestyle. More evidence is needed with regard to gender differences among participants in similar study settings.Peer reviewe

Pairwise Measures of Causal Direction in the Epidemiology of Sleep Problems and Depression

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Urban/rural differences in body weight: Evidence for social selection and causation hypotheses in Finland

Average body weight differences between urban and rural areas have been reported in many countries, but it is unknown whether these are due to effects of social selection or social causation. We examined whether adolescent body mass index (BMI) predicted selective urban/rural migration over a 21-year period and whether urban/rural living over the same period predicted differences in BMI increase from adolescence to adulthood in Finland. The participants were from the prospective, population-based Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study (n = 1787) aged 12-18 years at baseline and 33-39 years at the final follow-up, with data collected at six follow-up phases. Supporting social selection, heavier adolescents were less likely to migrate to urban areas as adults: in obese adolescents the likelihood of living in an urban area at 33-39 years age was one third of that in normal weight adolescents. Supporting social causation, rural residence over the study period predicted a greater increase in BMI from adolescence to adulthood than urban residence did. These associations were independent of parental socioeconomic status and BMI, and of participants' own educational level, occupational class, marital status, and parenthood status. Together the findings suggest that the higher body weight of people living in rural areas of Finland may be due to both social selection and social causation mechanisms, i.e. heavier people tend to migrate to more rural areas where people tend to get heavier.Finland Body weight Demography Obesity Residential mobility Urban/rural migration Body Mass Index (BMI)

Moderation of Breastfeeding Effects on Adult Depression by Estrogen Receptor Gene Polymorphism

Breastfeeding is known to benefit both the mother’s and the child’s health. Our aim was to test the interactive effects between estrogen receptor 1 (ESR1) rs2234693 and breastfeeding when predicting the child’s later depression in adulthood. A sample of 1209 boys and girls from the Young Finns Study were followed from childhood over 27 years up to age 30–45 years. Adulthood depressive symptoms were self-reported by the participants using the Beck Depression Inventory. Breastfeeding as well as several possibly confounding factors was reported by the parents in childhood or adolescence. Breastfeeding tended to predict lower adult depression, while ESR1 rs2234693 was not associated with depression. A significant interaction between breastfeeding and ESR1 was found to predict participants’ depression (P=.004) so that C/C genotype carriers who had not been breastfed had higher risk of depression than T-allele carriers (40.5% versus 13.0%) while there were no genotypic differences among those who had been breastfed. In sex-specific analysis, this interaction was evident only among women. We conclude that child’s genes and maternal behavior may interact in the development of child’s adult depression so that breastfeeding may buffer the inherited depression risk possibly associated with the C/C genotype of the ESR1 gene

Intergenerational transmission of qualities of the parent-child relationship in the population-based Young Finns Study

We examined the intergenerational transmission of parent-child relationship qualities in a population-based Finnish sample of 1418 participants (G2) and their mothers (G1). At baseline, G1 (Mage=38) reported qualities of the parent-child relationship in terms of emotional warmth and acceptance towards G2 (age range 3-18). After 28years, G2 (Mage=39) rated the qualities of the parent-child relationship regarding their own children using the same questionnaire. Emotional warmth and acceptance were transmitted across generations even after controlling for demographic and family characteristics in both generations. The transmission was stronger for emotional warmth than acceptance. For emotional warmth, intergenerational transmission was stronger for men than women. The findings provide evidence for the long-term transmission of parenting quality across generations.Peer reviewe