Vertical transmission of overweight: Evidence from a sample of English adoptees |
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| Institution: | 1. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK;2. Office of Health Economics, London, UK;1. Department of Statistics, London School of Economics, London WC2A 2AE, UK;2. Applied Statistics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, 203 Barrackpore Trunk Road, Kolkata 700 108, India;1. Institute of Preventive Medicine, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospital, Capital Region, Copenhagen, Denmark;2. National Centre for Register-based Research, Fuglesangs Allé 4, Aarhus University, DK-8210 Aarhus V, Denmark;3. Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark;4. Department of Biostatistics, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5B, DK-1014 Copenhagen K, Denmark;5. Centre for Suicide Research, University Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK;1. Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, University of Arizona, United States;2. Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, United States;3. Joint Research Center, European Commission, Spain;1. Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA;2. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA;3. Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA |
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| Abstract: | Vertical influences can significantly shape children overweight by affecting both genetics and the environment children are exposed to. This paper examines the vertical (parental) transmission of child overweight drawing upon a fifteen year sample of English adults and their children, both adopted and biological, for which we can retrieve clinical measures height and weight. We find that, when both parents are overweight, children exhibit an increased likelihood of overweight, irrespective of whether they are adopted or biological children. When both parents are obese as opposed to overweight the picture is different. We find that the likelihood of child overweight increases by 16.7 percentage points among natural (non-adopted) children but only by 4.5 percentage points among adopted children. This suggests that the transmission of overweight when both parents are obese is not merely genetic, and what has been called vertical or parental transmission plays a non-negligible role. Our findings are validated by are a battery of robustness checks. |
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| Keywords: | Vertical transmission Cultural transmission Overweight Children Adopted children Biological children Biological parents Body Mass Index Sample selection I18 D13 Z1 |
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