IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/poprpr/v32y2013i2p199-220.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Veteran Status and Body Weight: A Longitudinal Fixed-Effects Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Jay Teachman
  • Lucky Tedrow

Abstract

About 10–12 % of young men (and increasingly, women) have served a term in the military. Yet, we know relatively little about the consequences of military service for the lives of those who serve. In this article, we provide estimates of the relationship between men’s peacetime military service during the all-volunteer era (AVE) and body weight using longitudinal data on 6,304 men taken from the National Longitudinal Survey of 1979 (NLSY-79). Using fixed-effects estimators on up to 13 years of data and numerous controls for time-varying life-course characteristics linked to body weight, we find that veterans of active-duty military service have higher levels of BMI and obesity. We argue that eating habits learned during service, coupled with patterns of physical activity, lead to a situation whereby veterans making the transition to less active civilian lifestyles gain weight that is not lost over time. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Jay Teachman & Lucky Tedrow, 2013. "Veteran Status and Body Weight: A Longitudinal Fixed-Effects Approach," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(2), pages 199-220, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:poprpr:v:32:y:2013:i:2:p:199-220
    DOI: 10.1007/s11113-012-9262-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11113-012-9262-5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11113-012-9262-5?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. Böckerman, Petri & Johansson, Edvard & Jousilahti, Pekka & Uutela, Antti, 2008. "The physical strenuousness of work is slightly associated with an upward trend in the BMI," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(6), pages 1346-1355, March.
    2. Kenneth F. Ferraro & Roland J. Thorpe & Jody A. Wilkinson, 2003. "The Life Course of Severe Obesity: Does Childhood Overweight Matter?," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 58(2), pages 110-119.
    3. Sobal, Jeffery & Rauschenbach, Barbara & Frongillo, Edward A., 2003. "Marital status changes and body weight changes: a US longitudinal analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1543-1555, April.
    4. Lakdawalla, Darius & Philipson, Tomas, 2009. "The growth of obesity and technological change," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 283-293, December.
    5. Bray, R.M. & Marsden, M.E. & Peterson, M.R., 1991. "Standardized comparisons of the use of alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes among military personnel and civilians," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 81(7), pages 865-869.
    6. Wardle, J. & Waller, J. & Jarvis, M.J., 2002. "Sex differences in the association of socioeconomic status with obesity," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 92(8), pages 1299-1304.
    7. Joshua D. Angrist, 1998. "Estimating the Labor Market Impact of Voluntary Military Service Using Social Security Data on Military Applicants," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(2), pages 249-288, March.
    8. Bryant, Richard R. & Samaranayake, V. A. & Wilhite, Allen, 1993. "The effect of military service on the subsequent civilian wage of the post-Vietnam veteran," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 15-31.
    9. Jay Teachman, 2007. "Race, military service, and marital timing: Evidence from the NLSY-79," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(2), pages 389-404, May.
    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. Rabbitt, Matthew P. & Smith, Michael D., 2021. "Food Insecurity Among Working-Age Veterans," USDA Miscellaneous 311332, United States Department of Agriculture.
    2. Rabbitt, Matthew P. & Smith, Michael D., 2021. "Food Insecurity Among Working-Age Veterans," USDA Miscellaneous 311332, United States Department of Agriculture.

    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. Chen, Duan-Rung & Wen, Tzai-Hung, 2010. "Socio-spatial patterns of neighborhood effects on adult obesity in Taiwan: A multi-level model," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(6), pages 823-833, March.
    2. Maruyama, Shiko & Nakamura, Sayaka, 2018. "Why are women slimmer than men in developed countries?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 1-13.
    3. Duncan, Roberto & Toledo, Patricia, 2019. "Inequality in body mass indices across countries: Evidence from convergence tests," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 40-57.
    4. P. Routon, 2014. "The Effect of 21st Century Military Service on Civilian Labor and Educational Outcomes," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 15-38, March.
    5. Jennifer L. Steele & Peter Buryk & Geoffrey McGovern, 2018. "Student Veterans’ Outcomes by Higher Education Sector: Evidence from Three Cohorts of the Baccalaureate and Beyond," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 59(7), pages 866-896, November.
    6. P. Wesley Routon, 2017. "Military service and marital dissolution: a trajectory analysis," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 335-355, March.
    7. John J. Hisnanick, 2003. "A Great Place to Start: The Role of Military Service on Human Capital Formation," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 17(1), pages 25-45, March.
    8. Barry T. Hirsch & Stephen L. Mehay, 2003. "Evaluating the Labor Market Performance of Veterans Using a Matched Comparison Group Design," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(3).
    9. Dang, Archana & Maitra, Pushkar & Menon, Nidhiya, 2019. "Labor market engagement and the body mass index of working adults: Evidence from India," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 58-77.
    10. Alair MacLean & Meredith Kleykamp, 2016. "Income Inequality and the Veteran Experience," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 663(1), pages 99-116, January.
    11. Kitae Sohn, 2014. "Job Strenuousness and Obesity: The Case of a Developing Country," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(9), pages 1289-1301, September.
    12. Ayan, Davut, 2016. "Unemployment Among the Recent U.S. Veterans," MPRA Paper 117307, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Becker, Sascha & Hvide, Hans V, 2013. "Do entrepreneurs matter?," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 109, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    14. Blackburn, McKinley L. & Vermilyea, Todd, 2012. "The prevalence and impact of misstated incomes on mortgage loan applications," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 151-168.
    15. Cornelie Nienaber-Rousseau & Olusola F. Sotunde & Patricia O. Ukegbu & P. Hermanus Myburgh & Hattie H. Wright & Lize Havemann-Nel & Sarah J. Moss & Iolanthé M. Kruger & H. Salomé Kruger, 2017. "Socio-Demographic and Lifestyle Factors Predict 5-Year Changes in Adiposity among a Group of Black South African Adults," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-16, September.
    16. Emanuela Galasso & Martin Ravallion, 2004. "Social Protection in a Crisis: Argentina's Plan Jefes y Jefas," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 18(3), pages 367-399.
    17. Carattini, Stefano & Gillingham, Kenneth & Meng, Xiangyu & Yoeli, Erez, 2024. "Peer-to-peer solar and social rewards: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 340-370.
    18. Robert G. Wood & Brian Goesling & Sarah Avellar, "undated". "The Effects of Marriage on Health: A Synthesis of Recent Research Evidence," Mathematica Policy Research Reports d69bf47785bc4154a4e184aa5, Mathematica Policy Research.
    19. Michael Gerfin & Michael Lechner, 2002. "A Microeconometric Evaluation of the Active Labour Market Policy in Switzerland," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(482), pages 854-893, October.
    20. Adamopoulou, Effrosyni & Olivieri, Elisabetta & Triviza, Eleftheria, 2024. "Eating habits, food consumption, and health: The role of early life experiences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).

    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:kap:poprpr:v:32:y:2013:i:2:p:199-220. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.