IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0168481.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is Childhood Socioeconomic Status Independently Associated with Adult BMI after Accounting for Adult and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status?

Author

Listed:
  • Gregory Pavela

Abstract

Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is inversely associated with adult weight in high income countries. Whether the influence of childhood SES on adult weight is best described using a critical period model or an accumulation of risk model is not yet settled. This research tests whether childhood SES is associated with adult BMI and likelihood of obesity independent of adult socioeconomic status and neighborhood characteristics. Data on individual childhood and adult characteristics come from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 13,545). Data on neighborhood characteristics come from the 2000 Decennial Census and American Community Survey (2005–2009). In the fully adjusted models, perceived financial hardship before the age of sixteen and having a father who was unemployed are associated with higher BMI among males and, among females, paternal education remains associated with adult BMI. However, childhood SES is not associated with likelihood of obesity after fully adjusting for adult SES and neighborhood characteristics, suggesting that the direct effects of early childhood SES on BMI are small relative to the other factors associated with obesity in adulthood.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregory Pavela, 2017. "Is Childhood Socioeconomic Status Independently Associated with Adult BMI after Accounting for Adult and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(1), pages 1-22, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0168481
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0168481
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0168481
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0168481&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0168481?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert, Stephanie A. & Reither, Eric N., 2004. "A multilevel analysis of race, community disadvantage, and body mass index among adults in the US," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(12), pages 2421-2434, December.
    2. Mark Hayward & Bridget Gorman, 2004. "The long arm of childhood: The influence of early-life social conditions on men’s mortality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 41(1), pages 87-107, February.
    3. Carl T. Montague & I. Sadaf Farooqi & Jonathan P. Whitehead & Maria A. Soos & Harald Rau & Nicholas J. Wareham & Ciaran P. Sewter & Janet E. Digby & Shehla N. Mohammed & Jane A. Hurst & Christopher H., 1997. "Congenital leptin deficiency is associated with severe early-onset obesity in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 387(6636), pages 903-908, June.
    4. Steven Haas, 2007. "The long-term effects of poor childhood health: An assessment and application of retrospective reports," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(1), pages 113-135, February.
    5. Lawrence Katz & B. Jeffrey Liebman, 2000. "Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment," Working Papers 820, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    6. James, S.A. & Van Hoewyk, J. & Belli, R.F. & Strogatz, D.S. & Williams, D.R. & Raghunathan, T.E., 2006. "Life-course socioeconomic position and hypertension in African American men: The Pitt County Study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(5), pages 812-817.
    7. Reither, Eric N. & Hauser, Robert M. & Yang, Yang, 2009. "Do birth cohorts matter? Age-period-cohort analyses of the obesity epidemic in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 1439-1448, November.
    8. Lawrence F. Katz & Jeffrey R. Kling & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2000. "Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment," Working Papers 820, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    9. Blackwell, Debra L. & Hayward, Mark D. & Crimmins, Eileen M., 2001. "Does childhood health affect chronic morbidity in later life?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1269-1284, April.
    10. Do, D. Phuong & Dubowitz, Tamara & Bird, Chloe E. & Lurie, Nicole & Escarce, Jose J. & Finch, Brian K., 2007. "Neighborhood context and ethnicity differences in body mass index: A multilevel analysis using the NHANES III survey (1988-1994)," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 179-203, July.
    11. Grafova, I.B. & Freedman, V.A. & Kumar, R. & Rogowski, J., 2008. "Neighborhoods and obesity in later life," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(11), pages 2065-2071.
    12. Freedman, Vicki A. & Grafova, Irina B. & Schoeni, Robert F. & Rogowski, Jeannette, 2008. "Neighborhoods and disability in later life," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(11), pages 2253-2267, June.
    13. Lawrence F. Katz & Jeffrey R. Kling & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2001. "Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 607-654.
    14. Brandt, Martina & Deindl, Christian & Hank, Karsten, 2012. "Tracing the origins of successful aging: The role of childhood conditions and social inequality in explaining later life health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(9), pages 1418-1425.
    15. Haas, Steven, 2008. "Trajectories of functional health: The 'long arm' of childhood health and socioeconomic factors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(4), pages 849-861, February.
    16. Hertzman, Clyde & Power, Chris & Matthews, Sharon & Manor, Orly, 2001. "Using an interactive framework of society and lifecourse to explain self-rated health in early adulthood," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 53(12), pages 1575-1585, December.
    17. Case, Anne & Fertig, Angela & Paxson, Christina, 2005. "The lasting impact of childhood health and circumstance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 365-389, March.
    18. Peter G. Kopelman, 2000. "Obesity as a medical problem," Nature, Nature, vol. 404(6778), pages 635-643, April.
    19. Gruenewald, Tara L. & Karlamangla, Arun S. & Hu, Perry & Stein-Merkin, Sharon & Crandall, Carolyn & Koretz, Brandon & Seeman, Teresa E., 2012. "History of socioeconomic disadvantage and allostatic load in later life," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 75-83.
    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. Xu, Yilan & Yilmazer, Tansel, 2021. "Childhood socioeconomic status, adulthood obesity and health: The role of parental permanent and transitory income," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    2. Carmeli, Cristian & Steen, Johan & Petrovic, Dusan & Lepage, Benoît & Delpierre, Cyrille & Kelly-Irving, Michelle & Bochud, Murielle & Kivimäki, Mika & Vineis, Paolo & Stringhini, Silvia, 2020. "Mechanisms of life-course socioeconomic inequalities in adult systemic inflammation: Findings from two cohort studies," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).

    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. Schaan, Barbara, 2014. "The interaction of family background and personal education on depressive symptoms in later life," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 94-102.
    2. Anna Zajacova & Katrina Walsemann & Jennifer Dowd, 2015. "The Long Arm of Adolescent Health Among Men and Women: Does Attained Status Explain Its Association with Mid-Adulthood Health?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 34(1), pages 19-48, February.
    3. Brandt, Martina & Deindl, Christian & Hank, Karsten, 2012. "Tracing the origins of successful aging: The role of childhood conditions and social inequality in explaining later life health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(9), pages 1418-1425.
    4. Bilal Nasim, 2015. "The association between social housing type and children's developmental outcomes," DoQSS Working Papers 15-07, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    5. Wen, Ming & Maloney, Thomas N., 2014. "Neighborhood socioeconomic status and BMI differences by immigrant and legal status: Evidence from Utah," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 120-131.
    6. Grafova, Irina B. & Freedman, Vicki A. & Lurie, Nicole & Kumar, Rizie & Rogowski, Jeannette, 2014. "The difference-in-difference method: Assessing the selection bias in the effects of neighborhood environment on health," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 20-33.
    7. James Smith, 2009. "Reconstructing childhood health histories," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), pages 387-403.
    8. Ko, Pei-Chun & Yeung, Wei-Jun Jean, 2019. "Childhood conditions and productive aging in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 229(C), pages 60-69.
    9. Gennetian, Lisa A. & Hill, Heather D. & London, Andrew S. & Lopoo, Leonard M., 2010. "Maternal employment and the health of low-income young children," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 353-363, May.
    10. Huang, Cheng & Soldo, Beth J. & Elo, Irma T., 2011. "Do early-life conditions predict functional health status in adulthood? The case of Mexico," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 100-107, January.
    11. Haas, Steven, 2008. "Trajectories of functional health: The 'long arm' of childhood health and socioeconomic factors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(4), pages 849-861, February.
    12. Renna, Francesco & Grafova, Irina B. & Thakur, Nidhi, 2008. "The effect of friends on adolescent body weight," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 377-387, December.
    13. Jennifer Montez & Mark Hayward, 2014. "Cumulative Childhood Adversity, Educational Attainment, and Active Life Expectancy Among U.S. Adults," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(2), pages 413-435, April.
    14. Jayanta Sarkar & Dipanwita Sarkar, 2016. "Why Does Child Labor Persist With Declining Poverty?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(1), pages 139-158, January.
    15. Andreia Tolciu, 2010. "The Economics of Social Interactions: An Interdisciplinary Ground for Social Scientists?," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(3), pages 223-242, January.
    16. Hui Zheng & Jonathan Dirlam & Paola Echave, 2021. "Divergent Trends in the Effects of Early Life Factors on Adult Health," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(5), pages 1119-1148, October.
    17. Elizabeth M. Lawrence & Elisabeth Root & Stefanie Mollborn, 2015. "Residential mobility in early childhood," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 33(32), pages 939-950.
    18. Johnson, Rucker C. & Schoeni, Robert F. & Rogowski, Jeannette A., 2012. "Health disparities in mid-to-late life: The role of earlier life family and neighborhood socioeconomic conditions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(4), pages 625-636.
    19. Alois Stutzer & Rafael Lalive, 2004. "The Role of Social Work Norms in Job Searching and Subjective Well-Being," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(4), pages 696-719, June.
    20. Johnson Rucker C., 2012. "Health Dynamics and the Evolution of Health Inequality over the Life Course: The Importance of Neighborhood and Family Background," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-69, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:plo:pone00:0168481. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.