Urban/rural differences in body weight: Evidence for social selection and causation hypotheses in Finland

Markus Jokela, Mika Kivimäki, Marko Elovainio, Jorma Viikari, Olli T. Raitakari and Liisa Keltikangas-Järvinen

Social Science & Medicine, 2009, vol. 68, issue 5, 867-875

Abstract: Average body weight differences between urban and rural areas have been reported in many countries, but it is unknown whether these are due to effects of social selection or social causation. We examined whether adolescent body mass index (BMI) predicted selective urban/rural migration over a 21-year period and whether urban/rural living over the same period predicted differences in BMI increase from adolescence to adulthood in Finland. The participants were from the prospective, population-based Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study (n = 1787) aged 12-18 years at baseline and 33-39 years at the final follow-up, with data collected at six follow-up phases. Supporting social selection, heavier adolescents were less likely to migrate to urban areas as adults: in obese adolescents the likelihood of living in an urban area at 33-39 years age was one third of that in normal weight adolescents. Supporting social causation, rural residence over the study period predicted a greater increase in BMI from adolescence to adulthood than urban residence did. These associations were independent of parental socioeconomic status and BMI, and of participants' own educational level, occupational class, marital status, and parenthood status. Together the findings suggest that the higher body weight of people living in rural areas of Finland may be due to both social selection and social causation mechanisms, i.e. heavier people tend to migrate to more rural areas where people tend to get heavier.

Keywords: Finland; Body; weight; Demography; Obesity; Residential; mobility; Urban/rural; migration; Body; Mass; Index; (BMI) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(08)00661-8
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:68:y:2009:i:5:p:867-875

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().