Early life exposure to food insecurity has lasting effects, study finds
Aasha Turner/Staff
Last Updated January 27, 2021
A research article published Jan. 2 observed Latinx farmworker children and found that exposure to food insecurity early in life can have a lasting impact on children’s growth.
To see if there was an association between early life exposure and food insecurity and obesity, researchers studied pregnant women and their children from the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas, a running birth cohort study. These women are mostly Latinx and from households with agricultural workers, according to Ryan Gamba, study lead author, UC Berkeley alumnus and assistant professor at California State University, East Bay.