IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v195y2017icp12-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gene-environment interactions between education and body mass: Evidence from the UK and Finland

Author

Listed:
  • Amin, Vikesh
  • Böckerman, Petri
  • Viinikainen, Jutta
  • Smart, Melissa C.
  • Bao, Yanchun
  • Kumari, Meena
  • Pitkänen, Niina
  • Lehtimäki, Terho
  • Raitakari, Olli
  • Pehkonen, Jaakko

Abstract

More education is associated with a lower body mass index (BMI) and likelihood of being overweight. However, since a large proportion of the variation in body mass is due to genetic makeup, it has been hypothesized that education may moderate the genetic risk. We estimate main associations between (i) education, (ii) genetic risk, and (iii) interactions between education and genetic risk on BMI and the probability of being overweight in the UK and Finland. The estimates show that education is negatively associated with BMI and overweightness, and genetic risk is positively associated. However, the interactions between education and genetic risk are small and statistically insignificant.

Suggested Citation

  • Amin, Vikesh & Böckerman, Petri & Viinikainen, Jutta & Smart, Melissa C. & Bao, Yanchun & Kumari, Meena & Pitkänen, Niina & Lehtimäki, Terho & Raitakari, Olli & Pehkonen, Jaakko, 2017. "Gene-environment interactions between education and body mass: Evidence from the UK and Finland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 12-16.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:195:y:2017:i:c:p:12-16
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.10.027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617306433
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.10.027?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liu, S.Y. & Walter, S. & Marden, J. & Rehkopf, D.H. & Kubzansky, L.D. & Nguyen, T. & Glymour, M.M., 2015. "Genetic vulnerability to diabetes and obesity: Does education offset the risk?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 150-158.
    2. Giorgio Brunello & Daniele Fabbri & Margherita Fort, 2013. "The Causal Effect of Education on Body Mass: Evidence from Europe," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 195-223.
    3. Webbink, Dinand & Martin, Nicholas G. & Visscher, Peter M., 2010. "Does education reduce the probability of being overweight?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 29-38, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kim, Young-Joo & Daly, Vincent, 2019. "The Education Gradient in Health: The Case of Obesity in the UK and US," Economics Discussion Papers 2019-4, School of Economics, Kingston University London.
    2. Amin, Vikesh & Fletcher, Jason & Behrman, Jere & Flores, Carlos A & Flores, Carlos A & Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso & Kohler, Hans Peter, 2019. "Mental Health, Schooling Attainment and Polygenic Scores: Are There Significant Gene-Environment Associations?," SocArXiv wjp5v, Center for Open Science.
    3. Amin, Vikesh & Dunn, Paul & Spector, Tim, 2018. "Does education attenuate the genetic risk of obesity? Evidence from U.K. Twins," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 200-208.
    4. Duncan, Roberto & Toledo, Patricia, 2019. "Inequality in body mass indices across countries: Evidence from convergence tests," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 40-57.
    5. Vikesh Amin & Jere R. Behrman & Jason M. Fletcher & Carlos A. Flores & Alfonso Flores-Lagunes & Hans-Peter Kohler, 2020. "Mental Health, Schooling Attainment and Polygenic Scores: Are There Significant Genetic-Environmental Associations?," PIER Working Paper Archive 20-007, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    6. Mirjam Frank & Nico Dragano & Marina Arendt & Andreas J Forstner & Markus M Nöthen & Susanne Moebus & Raimund Erbel & Karl-Heinz Jöckel & Börge Schmidt, 2019. "A genetic sum score of risk alleles associated with body mass index interacts with socioeconomic position in the Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(8), pages 1-14, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tansel, Aysit & Karao?lan, Deniz, 2016. "The Causal Effect of Education on Health Behaviors: Evidence from Turkey," IZA Discussion Papers 10020, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Karaoglan, Deniz & Tansel, Aysit, 2017. "Determinants of Obesity in Turkey: A Quantile Regression Analysis from a Developing Country," MPRA Paper 76250, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Sarah Brown & William Greene & Mark Harris, 2020. "A novel approach to latent class modelling: identifying the various types of body mass index individuals," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 183(3), pages 983-1004, June.
    4. Aysıt Tansel & Deniz Karaoğlan, 2019. "The Effect of Education on Health Behaviors and Obesity in Turkey: Instrumental Variable Estimates from a Developing Country," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 31(5), pages 1416-1448, December.
    5. Ajay Mahal & Lainie Sutton, 2014. "Economic prosperity and non-communicable disease: understanding the linkages," Chapters, in: Raghbendra Jha & Raghav Gaiha & Anil B. Deolalikar (ed.), Handbook on Food, chapter 12, pages 278-324, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Titus J. Galama & Adriana Lleras-Muney & Hans van Kippersluis, 2018. "The Effect of Education on Health and Mortality: A Review of Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Evidence," NBER Working Papers 24225, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Savelyev, Peter A. & Ward, Benjamin C. & Krueger, Robert F. & McGue, Matt, 2022. "Health endowments, schooling allocation in the family, and longevity: Evidence from US twins," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    8. Tansel, Aysit & Karaoglan, Deniz, 2014. "Health behaviors and education in Turkey," MPRA Paper 57322, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Jul 2014.
    9. Tansel, Aysit & Karao?lan, Deniz, 2016. "The Causal Effect of Education on Health Behaviors: Evidence from Turkey," IZA Discussion Papers 10020, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Xindong Xue & Mingmei Cheng & Wangyongxin Zhang, 2021. "Does Education Really Improve Health? A Meta‐Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 71-105, February.
    11. Kim, Young-Joo, 2016. "The long-run effect of education on obesity in the US," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 100-109.
    12. Amin, Vikesh & Behrman, Jere R. & Kohler, Hans-Peter, 2015. "Schooling has smaller or insignificant effects on adult health in the US than suggested by cross-sectional associations: New estimates using relatively large samples of identical twins," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 181-189.
    13. Charles L. Baum, 2017. "The Effects of College on Weight: Examining the “Freshman 15” Myth and Other Effects of College Over the Life Cycle," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(1), pages 311-336, February.
    14. Karaoglan, Deniz & Tansel, Aysit, 2017. "Determinants of Obesity in Turkey: A Quantile Regression Analysis from a Developing Country," MPRA Paper 76250, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. James, Jonathan, 2015. "Health and education expansion," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 193-215.
    16. Aysıt TANSEL & Deniz KARAOĞLAN, 2019. "Determinants of Health Behaviors and Obesity in Turkey," Sosyoekonomi Journal, Sosyoekonomi Society, issue 27(41).
    17. Benson, Rebecca & von Hippel, Paul T. & Lynch, Jamie L., 2018. "Does more education cause lower BMI, or do lower-BMI individuals become more educated? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 370-377.
    18. Pedro Albarran Pérez & Marisa Hidalgo Hidalgo & Iñigo Iturbe-Ormaetxe Kortajarene, 2017. "Schooling and adult health: Can education overcome bad early-life conditions?," Working Papers. Serie AD 2017-09, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    19. Barış Alpaslan & Julide Yildirim, 2020. "The Missing Link: Are Individuals with More Social Capital in Better Health? Evidence from India," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 811-834, August.
    20. Böckerman, Petri & Vainiomäki, Jari, 2013. "Stature and life-time labor market outcomes: Accounting for unobserved differences," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 86-96.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:195:y:2017:i:c:p:12-16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.