Concentrated poverty in US schools and adolescents’ risk of being overweight

Citation

Augustine, Jennifer March Skalamera; Olson, Julie; & Crosnoe, Robert (2016). Concentrated poverty in US schools and adolescents' risk of being overweight. Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. Seattle, WA.

Abstract

The growing concentration of students from low-income families in schools does not only have consequences for academic disparities and educational inequality. Attending a high-poverty school may also negatively affect students’ physical health. Building on the school effects literature and drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; n = 18,924), we used multi-level modeling techniques to reveal that the concentration of students from low-income families in U.S. secondary schools was associated with students’ individual likelihood of being overweight, net of their own background characteristics and many other factors selecting them into their schools. The primary mediator of this association was the concentration of other overweight students in the school, a mediational pathway that partly reflected unhealthy dieting norms in schools with many overweight students but was not related to the prevalence of obesogenic behaviors, school norms around body size, and social stigma around body size in those schools.

Reference Type

Conference proceeding

Book Title

Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association

Author(s)

Augustine, Jennifer March Skalamera
Olson, Julie
Crosnoe, Robert

Year Published

2016

City of Publication

Seattle, WA

Reference ID

7781