Social Demography and Adolescent Obesity

描述(申请人提供)：对美国青少年肥胖症流行的担忧很大程度上源于超重对健康的影响，即它与糖尿病、心脏病和其他医疗条件的联系。然而，超重对个人生活也有其他影响，这些影响还没有得到很好的研究或理解。此外，超重的许多原因肯定也与社会和行为变量有关。也就是说，在过去的几年里，人口并没有发生基因上的变化，变得更倾向于超重。相反，个人的行为和环境导致了基因的激活，这可能会导致青少年和成年人超重的发生率更高。因此，为了更好地了解这一重大公共卫生问题的各个方面，重要的是对超重的社会和行为原因以及整个生命过程中的后果进行更多的研究。在这项提案中，我们使用来自全国青少年健康纵向调查的数据来调查这些问题。

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.