Adolescent Friendships, BMI, and Physical Activity: Untangling Selection and Influence Through Longitudinal Social Network Analysis

Abstract

Bioecological theory suggests that adolescents’ health is a result of selection and socialization processes occurring between adolescents and their microsettings. This study examines the association between adolescents’ friends and health using a social network model and data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 1,896, mean age = 15.97 years). Results indicated evidence of friend influence on BMI and physical activity. Friendships were more likely among adolescents who engaged in greater physical activity and who were similar to one another in BMI and physical activity. These effects emerged after controlling for alternative friend selection factors, such as endogenous social network processes and propinquity through courses and activities. Some selection effects were moderated by gender, popularity, and reciprocity.

Incident Type 2 Diabetes Risk is Influenced by Obesity and Diabetes in Social Contacts: a Social Network Analysis

“…The last decade has seen rapid progress in the identification of how social relationships contribute to a variety of weight-related health behaviors, [1][2][3][4][5][6] body weight, [7][8][9][10] and chronic disease status. 11,12 This research shows that attributes or behaviors of the people in one's social network can serve as important determinants of one's own health.…”

“A Boy Would Be Friends With Boys … and a Girl … With Girls”: Gender Norms in Early Adolescent Friendships in Egypt and Belgium

“…Peers become increasingly influential and inform individual values and behaviors. Friend choice is key in determining an adolescent's involvement in or avoidance of risk behavior [11,12], for example, smoking [13], alcohol consumption, marijuana use, tobacco chewing, and sexual debut [14], body mass index and physical activity [15]. In addition, being popular among adolescent peers increases the chances of educational attainment and employment in young adulthood [16].…”

The salience of sport in cross-race friendship selection

“…race), the more likely individuals are to engage in crossgroup relations based on that characteristic (Blau, 1977). This is perhaps the most straightforward of Blau's arguments, as opportunities for adolescent cross-race friendship formation depend upon racial mixing opportunities (Echols & Graham, 2013;Graham, Munniksma, & Juvonen, 2014;Simpkins, Schaefer, Price, & Vest, 2013).…”

“…In addition, adolescents with larger friendship networks are expected to have more opportunities to establish cross-race friendships than adolescents with smaller friendship networks (Simpkins et al, 2013). To account for the potentially spurious effects of these individual characteristics, we included measures for gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and friendship network size.…”