Born to be wide? Exploring correlations in mother and adolescent body mass index

Heather Brown and Jennifer Roberts

Economics Letters, 2013, vol. 120, issue 3, 413-415

Abstract: The channels contributing to the intergenerational correlation in body mass are not well understood. A novel decomposition approach from quantitative genetics is used to estimate the contribution of maternal characteristics, household income, and adolescent behaviours on the intergenerational correlation in BMI. The analysis uses data on mothers and their adolescent children from the British Household Panel Survey. The overall intergenerational correlation in BMI is 0.25. Maternal educational attainment and adolescent participation in daily physical activity are the largest contributing factors to the intergenerational correlation in BMI. Maternal employment and high daily television viewing by the adolescent are also contributing factors. Overall, observable characteristics explain 11.2% of the intergenerational correlation in BMI.

Keywords: Body mass index; Restricted maximum likelihood; Intergenerational correlation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 I10 J10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:120:y:2013:i:3:p:413-415

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2013.05.022

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