IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_3971.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Nineteenth Century US BMIs by Race: Socioeconomics and Biology

Author

Listed:
  • Scott A. Carson

Abstract

Little research exists on late 19th and early 20th century US body mass index value differences by race, and darker complexions were associated with greater BMI values. Mulattos had greater BMI returns associated with socioeconomic characteristics, indicating that while blacks had greater BMIs than fairer complexioned whites and mulattos, part of the difference was offset by socioeconomic characteristics that favored fairer complexions. Black, mulatto, and white BMIs declined between 1860 and 1920, and farmers had greater BMIs than workers in other occupations.

Suggested Citation

  • Scott A. Carson, 2012. "Nineteenth Century US BMIs by Race: Socioeconomics and Biology," CESifo Working Paper Series 3971, CESifo Group Munich.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3971
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cesifo-group.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp3971.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wahl, Jenny B., 1996. "The Jurisprudence of American Slave Sales," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(01), pages 143-169, March.
    2. Darius Lakdawalla & Tomas Philipson, 2002. "The Growth of Obesity and Technological Change: A Theoretical and Empirical Examination," Working Papers 0203, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    3. Baum II, Charles L. & Ruhm, Christopher J., 2009. "Age, socioeconomic status and obesity growth," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 635-648, May.
    4. Bodenhorn, Howard, 2010. "Height and body mass index values of nineteenth-century New York legislators," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 121-126, March.
    5. Bodenhorn, Howard, 1999. "A Troublesome Caste: Height and Nutrition of Antebellum Virginia's Rural Free Blacks," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 59(04), pages 972-996, December.
    6. Costa, Dora L., 2004. "The Measure of Man and Older Age Mortality: Evidence from the Gould Sample," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(01), pages 1-23, March.
    7. Koch, Daniel, 2011. "Waaler revisited: The anthropometrics of mortality," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 106-117, 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. José Miguel Martínez-Carrión, 2016. "El bienestar biológico de los españoles durante la Restauración: un análisis provincial," Documentos de Trabajo de la Sociedad Española de Historia Agraria 1601, Sociedad Española de Historia Agraria.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Nineteenth century US race relations; body mass index; biological inequality;

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • N31 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

    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:ces:ceswps:_3971. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Klaus Wohlrabe). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.