Gender and Reinforcing Associations between Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Body Mass over the Life Course

Abstract

Using the 1957–1993 data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, we explore reciprocal associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and body mass in this 1939 birth cohort of non-Hispanic white men and women. We integrate the fundamental cause theory, the gender relations theory, and the life-course perspective to analyze gender differences in (a) the ways that early socioeconomic disadvantage launches bidirectional associations of body mass and SES, and (b) the extent to which these mutually-reinforcing effects generate socioeconomic disparities in midlife body mass. Using structural equation modeling, we find that socioeconomic disadvantage at age 18 is related to higher body mass index and a greater risk of obesity at age 54, and that this relationship is significantly stronger for women than men. Moreover, women are more adversely affected by two mechanisms underlying the focal association: the obesogenic effect of socioeconomic disadvantage and the SES-impeding effect of obesity. These patterns were also replicated in propensity score matching models. Gender and SES act synergistically over the life course to shape reciprocal chains of two disadvantaged statuses: heavier body mass and lower SES.

Deprivation or Discrimination? Comparing Theories of the Reverse Income-Obesity Gradient in the U.S. and South Korea

“…These findings also point to the importance of going beyond including marital status as a simple covariate in analyses of income-obesity relationships (Pudrovska 2014), to including it as an interacting variable that can fundamentally alter the processes that lead to such gradients.…”

“…There are many ways that marriage, household income, and weight can come to be related to each other, and mechanisms described in both of these theories may simultaneously play roles in creating such reverse BMI gradients (Pudrovska et al, 2014). In many cases, these differing explanations for the reverse gradient-deprivation, labor market discrimination, and marital discrimination-are all consistent with coarse-grained associations between income and BMI.…”

“…Of crucial importance for this theoretical comparison is differences in the slopes relating household income and BMI, rather than simple mean differences in BMI between married and never married individuals that might be due to marriage increasing BMI or BMI shaping the probability of getting married (Umberson et al 2009;Glass, Hass & Reither 2010;Pudrovska et al 2014).…”

Prevalence of Adult Obesity in the Guadeloupean Diabetic Population

“…This prevalence of obesity in Guadeloupians women may be explained by high parity (average 3-4 children), unpracticed less physical activity (19 women against 52 men) and family obesity (30 women against men 15) [18,19]. In fact, higher prevalence of obesity among females than males is a global phenomenon and had widely examined [22]. Obesity was also found to be significantly higher in married and Punjabi women [10].…”

Union Status, Educational Attainment, and Body Mass Index Among Emerging Adults

“…At the same time, there is evidence that those with more educational attainment have a greater incentive to maintain a lower BMI than their less educated counterparts. For instance, research indicates that there is more stigma in the labor market toward heavier individuals for jobs requiring a college degree—such that lower BMI individuals with a college degree may be more likely to get hired and promoted than college-educated individuals with higher BMIs (Pudrovska, Reither, Logan, & Sherman-Wilkins, 2014). …”