Relationship between obesity, negative affect and basal heart rate in predicting heart rate reactivity to psychological stress among adolescents

• Heart rate reactivity during a math task among adolescents was studied.
• Effects of base level heart rate, body mass index, and Internalizing were assessed.
• Heart reactivity was negatively related to base HR, BMI, and Internalizing.
• Basal HR, BMI, and Internalizing all independently predicted low reactivity.
• Lowered reactivity in skin conductance response was not found.

Reduced cardiovascular responses to psychological stressors have been found to be associated with both obesity and negative affect in adults, but have been less well studied in children and adolescent populations. These findings have most often been interpreted as reflecting reduced sympathetic nervous system response, perhaps associated with heightened baseline sympathetic activation among the obese and those manifesting negative affect. However, obesity and negative affect may themselves be correlated, raising the question of whether they both independently affect cardiovascular reactivity. The present study thus examined the separate effects of obesity and negative affect on both cardiovascular and skin conductance responses to stress (e.g., during a serial subtraction math task) in adolescents, while controlling for baseline levels of autonomic activity during rest. Both obesity and negative affect had independent and negative associations with cardiovascular reactivity, such that reduced stress responses were apparent for obese adolescents and those with high levels of negative affect. In contrast, neither obesity nor negative affect was related to skin conductance responses to stress, implicating specifically noradrenergic mechanisms rather than sympathetic mechanisms generally as being deficient. Moreover, baseline heart rate was unrelated to obesity in this sample, which suggests that heightened baseline of sympathetic activity is not necessary for the reduced cardiovascular reactivity to stress.