Longitudinal Association Between Marital Disruption and Child BMI and Obesity
Abstract
This research examines whether family disruptions (i.e., divorces and separation) contribute to children’s weight
problems. The sample consists of 7,299 observations for 2,333 children, aged 5–14, over the 1986–2006 period, from
a US representative sample from the Child and Young Adult Survey accompanying the National Longitudinal Survey of
Youth (NLSY). The study uses individual-fixed-effects models in a longitudinal framework to compare children’s BMI
and weight problems before and after a disruption. Furthermore, besides doing a before–after comparison for children,
the study also estimates the effects at various periods relative to the disruption in order to examine whether children
are affected before the disruption and whether any effects change as time passes from the disruption, as some effects
may be temporary or slow to develop. Despite having a larger sample than the previous studies, the results provide
no evidence that, on average, children’s BMI and BMI percentile scores (measured with continuous outcomes) are
affected before the disruption, after the disruption, and as time passes from the disruption, relative to a baseline
period a few years before the disruption. However, children experiencing a family disruption do have an increased risk
of obesity (having a BMI percentile score of 95 or higher) in the two years leading up to the disruption as well as after
the disruption, and as time passes from the disruption.
Description
The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/oby.2012.84
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
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