IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v120y2013i3p413-415.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Born to be wide? Exploring correlations in mother and adolescent body mass index

Author

Listed:
  • Brown, Heather
  • Roberts, Jennifer

Abstract

The channels contributing to the intergenerational correlation in body mass are not well understood. A novel decomposition approach from quantitative genetics is used to estimate the contribution of maternal characteristics, household income, and adolescent behaviours on the intergenerational correlation in BMI. The analysis uses data on mothers and their adolescent children from the British Household Panel Survey. The overall intergenerational correlation in BMI is 0.25. Maternal educational attainment and adolescent participation in daily physical activity are the largest contributing factors to the intergenerational correlation in BMI. Maternal employment and high daily television viewing by the adolescent are also contributing factors. Overall, observable characteristics explain 11.2% of the intergenerational correlation in BMI.

Suggested Citation

  • Brown, Heather & Roberts, Jennifer, 2013. "Born to be wide? Exploring correlations in mother and adolescent body mass index," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(3), pages 413-415.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:120:y:2013:i:3:p:413-415
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2013.05.022
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176513002590
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2013.05.022?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. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    2. Goldberger, Arthur S, 1989. "Economic and Mechanical Models of Intergenerational Transmission," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 504-513, June.
    3. Patricia M. Anderson & Kristin F. Butcher & Diane Whitemore Schanzenbach, 2007. "Childhood Disadvantage and Obesity: Is Nurture Trumping Nature?," NBER Chapters, in: The Problems of Disadvantaged Youth: An Economic Perspective, pages 149-180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Ruhm, Christopher J., 2008. "Maternal employment and adolescent development," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 958-983, October.
    5. Anderson, Patricia M. & Butcher, Kristin F. & Levine, Phillip B., 2003. "Maternal employment and overweight children," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 477-504, May.
    6. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2008. "Sibling similarities and economic inequality in the US," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(3), pages 685-701, July.
    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. Classen, Timothy J. & Thompson, Owen, 2016. "Genes and the intergenerational transmission of BMI and obesity," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 121-133.
    2. 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.
    3. Brown, Sarah & Greene, William H. & Harris, Mark N., 2014. "A New Formulation for Latent Class Models," IZA Discussion Papers 8283, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Xiao, Mimi, 2015. "Intergenerational transmission and the effects of health on migration," Economics PhD Theses 0515, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.

    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. Heather Brown & Jennifer Roberts, 2012. "Born to Be Wide? Exploring Correlations in Mother and Adolescent Body Mass Index Using Data from the British Household Panel Survey," Working Papers 2012019, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    2. Don Kenkel, 2012. "Health Behaviours Among Young People," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Georgia S. Papoutsi & Andreas C. Drichoutis & Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr., 2013. "The Causes Of Childhood Obesity: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 743-767, September.
    4. Agne Suziedelyte, 2015. "The effects of old and new media on children's weight," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(10), pages 1008-1018, February.
    5. Courtemanche, Charles & Tchernis, Rusty & Zhou, Xilin, 2017. "Parental Work Hours and Childhood Obesity: Evidence Using Instrumental Variables Related to Sibling School Eligibility," IZA Discussion Papers 10739, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Meyer, Sophie-Charlotte, 2016. "Maternal employment and childhood overweight in Germany," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 84-102.
    7. Milovanska-Farrington, Stefani, 2020. "Parents labor supply and childhood obesity: Evidence from Scotland," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    8. Cawley, John & Han, Euna & Kim, Jiyoon & Norton, Edward C., 2023. "Genetic nurture in educational attainment," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    9. Joan Costa-i-Font & Mireia Jofre-Bonet & Julian Le Grand, 2015. "Vertical Transmission of Overweight: Evidence from English Adoptees," CESifo Working Paper Series 5351, CESifo.
    10. Peter Kooreman, 2007. "Time, money, peers, and parents; some data and theories on teenage behavior," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(1), pages 9-33, February.
    11. Costa-Font, Joan & Jofre-Bonet, Mireia, 2020. "Is the intergenerational transmission of overweight ‘gender assortative’?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    12. Ambra Poggi & Guyonne Kalb, 2019. "From parent to child? The long-lasting effects of social support," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 170, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.
    13. Herbst, Chris M. & Tekin, Erdal, 2010. "Child care subsidies and child development," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 618-638, August.
    14. Stifel, David C. & Averett, Susan L., 2009. "Childhood overweight in the United States: A quantile regression approach," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 387-397, December.
    15. Schochet, Owen N. & Johnson, Anna D. & Ryan, Rebecca M., 2020. "The relationship between increases in low-income mothers’ education and children’s early outcomes: Variation by developmental stage and domain," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    16. 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.
    17. Lauren Cohen & Christopher Malloy, 2010. "Friends in High Places," NBER Working Papers 16437, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Charles J. Courtemanche & Joshua C. Pinkston & Christopher J. Ruhm & George L. Wehby, 2016. "Can Changing Economic Factors Explain the Rise in Obesity?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(4), pages 1266-1310, April.
    19. Rajeev Dehejia & Thomas DeLeire & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Josh Mitchell, 2007. "The Role of Religious and Social Organizations in the Lives of Disadvantaged Youth," NBER Chapters, in: The Problems of Disadvantaged Youth: An Economic Perspective, pages 237-274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Emran, M. Shahe & Shilpi, Forhad, 2015. "Gender, Geography, and Generations: Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Post-Reform India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 362-380.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Body mass index; Restricted maximum likelihood; Intergenerational correlation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General

    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:eee:ecolet:v:120:y:2013:i:3:p:413-415. 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/locate/ecolet .

    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.