Abstract
Despite knowledge that early pubertal timing predicts adolescent girls’ substance use, it is still unclear whether this relationship persists beyond early adolescence and whether it is conditional on girls’ body weight. This study examined the moderating role of body weight in the association between early pubertal timing and adolescent girls’ substance use using three waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The analytic sample included 5,591 adolescent girls attending middle-schools and high-schools in the United States (ages 10–15, 71% White, 14% Black). Results indicated that early pubertal timing was associated with substance use risk but effects were attenuated after controlling for prior use. Body weight moderated the association between early pubertal timing and girls’ reported number of substances tried in middle adolescence. Body weight magnified the risk of having tried one substance, but buffered the risk of having tried three substances. Among those girls who did use substances, body weight did not moderate the relationship between early pubertal timing and heavy substance use. It is concluded that the substance use risk associated with early pubertal timing is most salient during the developmental period in adolescence when sensitivity to bodily changes may be heightened.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Dr. Tony Brown for his continued feedback and support on earlier drafts of this manuscript, as well as Drs. Karen Campbell, Katharine Donato, Michael Ezell, and David Schlundt for their comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. The author would also like to thank the Editor-in-Chief Dr. Levesque, along with two anonymous reviewers, for their helpful suggestions and comments. This research uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by a grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 (addhealth@unc.edu). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.
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Tanner-Smith, E.E. Negotiating the Early Developing Body: Pubertal Timing, Body Weight, and Adolescent Girls’ Substance Use. J Youth Adolescence 39, 1402–1416 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9489-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9489-6