“Exposure to racial discrimination must be acknowledged as both a social determinant of obesity and a significant contributor to obesity disparities among children and adolescents,” said Adolfo Cuevas, assistant professor of social and behavioral sciences at the NYU School of Global Public Health and the study’s lead author.

Childhood obesity is a major public health issue in the U.S., affecting nearly one in five children and teens.

Black and Hispanic youth experience even higher rates of obesity, which research shows may stem from factors such as poverty, neighborhood access to healthy foods, and single-parent households.

A growing body of research finds that another known stressor, racial discrimination, puts people at risk for a range of health issues, including sleep problems, high cortisol levels, and poor mental health.

The researchers examined data from 6,463 children ages 9 to 11 from across the U.S. who took part in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study from 2017 to 2019.

They first measured young people’s experiences of racial discrimination by asking them to reflect on whether they were treated unfairly by others based on their race or ethnicity.

A year later, they measured the participants’ BMI (calculated using weight and height) and waist circumference.

The researchers found that kids who experienced greater racial discrimination had higher BMI and larger waist circumference a year later, even when adjusting for known socioeconomic risk factors for obesity, including household income and parents’ level of education.

They conclude that reducing exposure to racial discrimination and its detrimental effects on wellbeing early in life could help limit the risk of weight gain across the lifespan.

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