Differences in health behaviors partly explain the socioeconomic gap in cardiovascular health. We prospectively examined the association between childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and lifestyle factors in adulthood, and the difference of lifestyle factors according to childhood SES in multiple time points from childhood to adulthood.
The sample comprised 3453 participants aged 3-18?years at baseline (1980) from the longitudinal Young Finns Study. The participants were followed up for 31?years (N?=?1675-1930). SES in childhood was characterized as reported annual family income and classified on an 8-point scale. Diet, smoking, alcohol intake and physical activity were used as adult and life course lifestyle factors. Higher childhood SES predicted a healthier diet in adulthood in terms of lower consumption of meat (ß?±?SE -3.6?±?0.99,p?