Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Mark Mitchell
Author-Name-First: Mark
Author-Name-Last: Mitchell
Author-Email: mark.mitchell@ed.ac.uk;
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of Edinburgh
Author-Name: Justus Laugwitz
Author-Name-First: Justus
Author-Name-Last: Laugwitz
Author-Email: justus.laugwitz@ed.ac.uk
Author-Workplace-Name: University of Edinburgh
Author-Name: Patricio Valdivieso Massa*
Author-Name-First: Patricio
Author-Name-Last: Valdivieso Massa*
Author-Email: p.valdivieso_massa@hw.ac.uk
Author-Workplace-Name: Heriot-Watt University
Title: Quantifying Socioeconomic Inequality in Childhood  Obesity
Abstract: We use longitudinal data on 11,000 UK-born children to examine the relationship between parental
weight and income and children’s overweight across childhood. We find that children are three
times as likely to be overweight or obese at 14 if they have an obese parent. Irrespective of their
parents’ weight, children in the poorest 20% of families are twice as likely to be overweight or
obese. These relationships persist through childhood, strengthen over time, and are impervious
to observed behavioural differences between groups. This suggests that differences in shared
social and economic circumstances across childhood lead to the emergence of stark inequality in
childhood obesity across the income distribution by age 14.
Length:  pages
Creation-Date: 2020-11
Revision-Date: 2021-01
Publication-Status: 
File-URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IV7tHxw0V6zq6qes51wl9qPgaR1dEKSO/view
File-Format: Application/pdf
Number: 2016
Classification-JEL: I0, I12, I14, J13
Keywords: Childhood obesity, health, inequality, intergenerational transmission
Handle: RePEc:str:wpaper:2016