Vertical Transmission of Overweight: Evidence From English Adoptees

Joan Costa-Font, Mireia Jofre-Bonet and Julian Le Grand

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: We examine the vertical transmission of overweight drawing upon a sample of English children, both adopted and non-adopted, and their families. Our results suggest strong evidence of an intergenerational association of overweight between adopted children and their adoptive parents, indicating transmission through cultural factors. We find that, when both adoptive parents are overweight, the likelihood of an adopted child being overweight is between 10 and 20 percentual points higher than when they are not. We also find that the cultural transmission of overweight is not aggravated by having a full-time working mother, so do not confirm the existence of a female labour market participation penalty on child overweight among adoptees. Overall, our findings are robust to a battery of robustness checks and specifications.

Keywords: Vertical transmission; cultural transmission; overweight; children; natural parents; Body Mass Index; sample selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 I18 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hea, nep-lma and nep-ltv
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https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1324.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Vertical transmission of overweight: evidence from English adoptees (2016)
Working Paper: Vertical Transmission of Overweight: Evidence from English Adoptees (2015)
Working Paper: Vertical Transmission of Overweight: Evidence from English Adoptees (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1324

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