Social Demography and Adolescent Obesity

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Concern about the adolescent obesity epidemic in the United States largely rises from the health consequences of overweight, i.e., its connections to diabetes, heart disease, and other medical conditions. Overweight, however, also has other effects on individual lives that are not well-studied or understood. Further, many of the causes of overweight must have to do with social and behavioral variables as well. That is, the population has not genetically transformed in the past several years to become more inclined to be overweight. Instead individual's behaviors and environments have led to the activation of genes that may lead to a greater incidence of both adolescent and adult overweight. Consequently, it is important to do more research on the social and behavioral causes and consequences of overweight throughout the life course in order to get a better understanding of the dimensions of this major public health problem. In this proposal we use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health to investigate these issues.