A Longitudinal View of the Relationship Between Social Marginalization and Obesity

Citation

Apolloni, Andrea; Marathe, Achla; & Pan, Zhengzheng (2011). A Longitudinal View of the Relationship Between Social Marginalization and Obesity. In Salerno, John; Yang, ShanchiehJay; Nau, Dana; & Chai, Sun-Ki (Eds.), Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction (pp. 61-68). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Abstract

We use 3 Waves of the Add Health data collected between 1994 and 2002 to conduct a longitudinal study of the relationship between social marginalization and the weight status of adolescents and young adults. Past studies have shown that overweight and obese children are socially marginalized. This research tests (1) if this is true when we account for the sample size of each group, (2) does this phenomenon hold over time and (3) is it obesity or social marginalization that precedes in time. Our results show that when the sample size for each group is considered, the share of friendship is conforming to the size of the group. This conformity seems to increase over time as the population becomes more obese. Finally, we find that obesity precedes social marginalization which lends credence to the notion that obesity causes social marginalization and not vice versa.

URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19656-0_10

Keyword(s)

Obesity

Reference Type

Book Chapter

Book Title

Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction

Series Title

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Author(s)

Apolloni, Andrea
Marathe, Achla
Pan, Zhengzheng

Editor(s)

Salerno, John
Yang, ShanchiehJay
Nau, Dana
Chai, Sun-Ki

Year Published

2011

Volume Number

6589

Pages

61-68

Publisher

Springer Berlin Heidelberg

ISSN/ISBN

978-3-642-19655-3

DOI

10.1007/978-3-642-19656-0_10

Reference ID

4694