Socioeconomic disadvantage in adolescent women and metabolic syndrome in mid-adulthood: An examination of pathways of embodiment in the Northern Swedish Cohort

► Embodiment can be viewed as the literal incorporation of the social world into the material body. ► Early disadvantage is related to adult metabolic syndrome in women but not in men, by unknown pathways of embodiment. ► The accumulation of adversity over the life course was found to be an important explanation to this example of women's embodiment. ► Social chains of risk appears to be a pathway by which women embody structural relations.