Table 2.

Variables Assessed in Study and Description of Survey Items

Variables	Description of survey items
ACEs	Adverse experiences in childhood (<18 years) were assessed by asking participants about their own experiences of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse as well as three questions regarding other dimensions of dysfunction in their childhood household. The authors defined participants as exposed to each type of maltreatment using the following definitions, informed by the ACEs Scale.49,50Physical abuse: ever being hit by a family member so hard that it left bruises or marks. Emotional abuse: an adult in the family saying hurtful or insulting things “often” or “very often.” Sexual abuse: ever experienced unwanted sexual touching or forced sex from an adult in one's family and/or from an adult outside one's family. Participants were also asked to answer three questions (yes/no) regarding whether a household member was “a problem drinker or alcoholic, used street drugs, or abused prescription drugs”; was “depressed, mentally ill, or attempted suicide”; or “went to prison.” An indicator variable was defined to represent none or at least one adverse experience (test–retest agreement = 85%).51
Stressful life events	Participants indicated whether or not they had experienced the following six events: “had problems with the police”; “been hit, shoved, held down or had some other physical force used against you by a spouse or someone you were dating”; “been forced to touch a dating partner or spouse sexually or had some type of sexual behavior forced on you”; “been attacked, beaten, or mugged (not including events that involved a parent, caretaker, teacher, spouse, or dating partner)”; “had a close family member or friend die violently”; and “witnessed a situation in which someone was seriously injured or killed, or in which you feared someone would be seriously injured or killed.” Survey items were based on the Life Events Questionnaire,2 Brief Trauma Questionnaire,52 and previous Project EAT surveys.53 A dichotomous variable was created to represent having experienced any of the six events at any point (test–retest agreement = 85%).
Discrimination	Participants were asked how often they experience three forms of interpersonal discrimination: (1) “You are treated with less respect or courtesy than other people,” (2) “You receive poorer service than other people in restaurants and stores,” and (3) “People act as if they think you are not smart or clever.” Items were selected from tools that have been used to assess the impact of stigma and discrimination in longitudinal studies.54 Response options for each item were “Never,” “Less than once a year,” “A few times a year,” “A few times a month,” and “At least once a week.” Frequency responses for the three forms of discrimination were summed with a range of scores from 3 to 15 (Cronbach's α = 0.83, test–retest r = 0.69) and then dichotomized at 7 corresponding to these three types of discrimination happening on average at least a few times a year.
Financial situation	“How difficult is it for you to get by financially right now?”55–58 Response options included “Not at all difficult,” “Somewhat difficult,” “Very difficult or can barely get by,” and “Extremely difficult or impossible” (test–retest r = 0.72). Responses were dichotomized such that only responses indicating very difficult or extremely difficult challenges were taken to represent financial struggles (test–retest agreement = 92%).
Yoga practice	Young adults indicated if they had ever done yoga over the past year (yes/no) (test–retest agreement = 89%). Those who had ever done yoga were additionally asked, “On average, how frequently did you do yoga over the past year?” Seven response options ranged from “less than ½ hour/week” to “10+ hours/week.” Respondents who engaged in yoga at least 30 min/week were identified as practicing yoga (test–retest agreement = 86%).
Perceived stress	“On a scale from one to ten, with one being not stressed at all and ten being very stressed, how would you rate your average level of stress in the past 30 days?” (test–retest r = 0.69). This measure of stress was previously developed for a similar population of young adults.59
Sociodemographic characteristics	Sociodemographic variables included age (based on date of birth), ethnicity/race, SES, and gender. Ethnicity/race was assessed at baseline with the question: “Do you think of yourself as…? (1) White, (2) Black or African American, (3) Hispanic or Latino, (4) Asian American, (5) Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, (6) American Indian or Native American, or (7) Other” (test–retest agreement = 98%–100%). Since very few participants reported “Hawaiian or Pacific Islander,” or did not report their ethnicity/race, they were coded as “mixed/other.” Categorization of SES was determined at baseline and was primarily based on the highest education level of either parent with adjustments made for student eligibility for free/reduced-price school meals, family public assistance receipt, and parent employment status.60,61 On the EAT 2018 survey, participants were given three options for gender: male, female, or different identity (please specify). There were n = 11 (0.6%) who responded “Different identity” and n = 15 (0.9%) who did not respond. Nonresponders were recoded with their gender identity (male or female) from EAT 2010. All others were coded with their gender as reported in EAT 2018.

All items were assessed on the EAT 2018 survey unless indicated otherwise.

ACE, adverse childhood experience.