Kids and Obesity—Corrected Version
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| Michelle Frisco assistant professor of sociology and demography |
Parents of obese children are statistically more likely to be obese themselves but what is not yet known is the relative balance between genetic and social factors that lead parents to transmit weight problems to their children, says Michelle Frisco. And, given that obesity is growing at such alarmingly fast rates (the Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently had to add to the number of categories representing the proportion of overweight individuals by state), sociologists and demographers must pay more attention to the social causes and consequences of adolescent obesity. This is the primary aim of Frisco's large, multi-year study on adolescent obesity that she is conducting with Penn State colleague, Molly Martin, and Gary Sandefur who is at the University of Wisconsin.
Frisco explained how her part of the study focuses on consequences of obesity for adolescent boys and girls during the teen years and early adulthood. "We are studying the way obesity relates to academic attainment, young adults entry into the labor force, fertility decisions like the timing of a first birth, and other milestones associated with becoming an adult," Frisco explains. "We also want to see how obesity relates to the other aspects of life during adolescence like their mental health."
Although the study is still in its initial stage, she discussed preliminary research that is not yet published suggests some interesting findings about the predictors of adolescent obesity, in the realms of race and gender. "We have found that in the way parenting shapes obesity, there are differences by gender," she explains. "Parent-adolescent emotional distance matters for girls in terms of their weight, but not for boys. It also matters more among white girls than African American girls."
Frisco and her colleagues use nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health for their study. These data were collected by researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill using funds from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The study surveyed,approximately 90,000 adolescents in selected schools and a nationally representative subsample of adolescents also participated in home interviews, along with their parents and selected siblings. The data track adolescents over a period of 5 years at 3 points in time. Height and weight of adolescents in the study were measured at 3 points in time—adolescents self-reported these data at each of these time points and height and weight were also clinically assessed during the last two time points.
Although it is fairly simple to assess body composition, some factors that shape them are much more difficult to measure. For instance, it is difficult to accurately assess food consumption and physical activity. "In any study on obesity, it's very hard to get accuracy," she says. "People have no idea what they really eat, and don't understand portions or serving sizes."
Although she cannot draw any scientific conclusions from her project until all of her data analysis with her colleagues is complete, Frisco says she can speculate on at least one of the reasons for the rise in obesity.
"We live in an increasingly built environment where people drive everywhere and no one walks," she says. "I live two blocks from the public school my son will attend and he will have to take the bus. That's a perfect example."
And although genetics plays a role, she stresses that it's a smaller one than many people think.
"The CDC put together a series of slides which show the growth of obesity, state by state," she says. "When you see how incredibly fast the problem has grown over the years, it is impossible to argue that genetics have changed that quickly. Someone may have a genetic propensity for obesity, but genes alone does not make most people fat."
Frisco grew up outside of Pittsburgh and went to Penn State for her undergraduate degree. Always interested in families, she began looking into the way that the division of labor was related to a couple's odds of divorce when she was in graduate school at the University of Texas. When she realized that outcomes of divorce are much tougher on kids than adults, she decided to switch her area of study.
"One of my professors at the University of Texas convinced me that if I focused on kids, it was possible to still shape their behavior," she explained. "It's much harder to change adults because behavior is much more engrained."
Over time, her research began to focus on other aspects of adolescents' health and well-being, which is what led her and her colleagues to begin their new project. Although doctors and scientists have uncovered many of the extreme health risks of obesity, Frisco and her colleagues' study will help to examine the social effects.
"We're looking forward to seeing how obesity shapes adolescents lives as they move into young adulthood," she says.