Maternal Education at Birth and Youth Breakfast Consumption at Age 15: Blacks’ Diminished Returns

Shervin Assari, Shanika Boyce, Mohsen Bazargan, Cleopatra H. Caldwell and Ron Mincy
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Shervin Assari: Department of Family Medicine, Charles R. Drew University, Los Angeles, CA 90059, USA
Shanika Boyce: Department of Pediatrics, Charles R. Drew University, Los Angeles, CA 90059, USA
Mohsen Bazargan: Department of Family Medicine, Charles R. Drew University, Los Angeles, CA 90059, USA
Cleopatra H. Caldwell: Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029, USA
Ron Mincy: Center for Research on Fathers, Children, and Family Well-Being, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027-5927, USA

J, 2020, vol. 3, issue 3, 1-11

Abstract: Background: Based on the Marginalization-related Diminished Returns (MDRs) framework, high socioeconomic status (SES) such as parental education shows weaker effects for Blacks than Whites. For example, high SES Black individuals report a high level of depression, anxiety, suicide, chronic disease, smoking, and mortality. Limited knowledge exists on MDRs of parental education on dietary behavior. Aims: Built on the MDRs framework, we tested the hypothesis of whether the effect of parental education on eating breakfast differs for Black compared to White families. We hypothesized that there is an association between mothers’ educational attainment and eating breakfast and compared Blacks and Whites for the effect of mothers’ educational attainment on the frequency of eating breakfast. Methods: The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study is a 15-year follow up study of a random sample of births in cities larger than 200,000 population. The predictor was parental education at birth. The outcome was the frequency of eating breakfast at age 15. Linear regression was used for data analysis. Results: Maternal educational attainment at birth was positively associated with youth frequency of eating breakfast among Whites, not Blacks. We also found a significant interaction between maternal educational attainment at birth and race, suggesting that the association between maternal education and youth frequency of eating breakfast at age 15 was weaker for Black than White families. Conclusions: Diminished returns of maternal educational attainment on healthy youth diet may contribute to the racial disparities in poor health of high SES Black families. That is, a smaller protective effect of maternal education on changing health behaviors for Black than White youth may be one of the mechanisms by which health is worse than expected in high SES Black families. The health disparities are not only due to racial differences in SES but also the diminishing returns of socioeconomic status indicators such as education for racial minorities. Research should study contextual and structural factors that reduce Black families’ ability to mobilize their human capital and secure health outcomes in urban settings.

Keywords: African Americans; Blacks; maternal health; socioeconomic status; socioeconomic education; birth outcomes; low birth weight (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 I10 I12 I13 I14 I18 I19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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