ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2018
Does more education cause lower BMI, or do lower-BMI individuals become more educated? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The relationship between obesity and tertiary education outcomes: a systematic review.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2019Pooled it
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- Educational attainment and diabetes risk: triangulation evidence from UK Biobank prospective cohort, NHANES 2011-2018, and cross-trait genomics analyses.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Association of Low Educational Attainment and Higher Colorectal Cancer Risk: Mediatory Effect of Lifestyle-Associated Factors Within Local Context.World journal of oncology · 2025Article
- Do high school experiences shape midlife body weight?Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- How exercise frequency affects BMI: a nationwide cross-sectional study exploring key influencing factors, including dietary behavior.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Causal association of obesity-related anthropometric traits with myopia and the mediating role of educational attainment: a Mendelian randomization study.International journal of ophthalmology · 2024Article
- Associations of Smoking Behaviors and Body Mass Index Among American Participants of a Clinical Tobacco Cessation Program: A Pilot Study.Tobacco use insights · 2024Article
- Characterising the prevalence of overweight and obese status among adults with sickle cell disease.British journal of haematology · 2023Article
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- Exploring the socioeconomic disparities of maternal body mass index: a national study in France.European journal of public health · 2022Article
- Shifting educational gradients in body mass index trajectories of Indonesians: an age period cohort analysis.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Intergenerational transmission of body mass index and associations with educational attainment.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Eating disorder symptoms and their associations with anthropometric and psychiatric polygenic scores.European eating disorders review : the journal of the Eating Disorders Association · 2022Article
- Simultaneous estimation of bi-directional causal effects and heritable confounding from GWAS summary statistics.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Evaluating the Role of Parental Education and Adolescent Health Problems in Educational Attainment.Demography · 2020Article
- Are weight status and weight perception associated with academic performance among youth?Journal of eating disorders · 2020Article
- Article
- An examination of multivariable Mendelian randomization in the single-sample and two-sample summary data settings.International journal of epidemiology · 2019Article
- Associations between Childhood Disadvantage and Adult Body Mass Index Trajectories: A Follow-Up Study among Midlife Finnish Municipal Employees.Obesity facts · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
More educated adults have lower average body mass index (BMI). This may be due to selection, if adolescents with lower BMI attain higher levels of education, or it may be due to causation, if higher educational attainment reduces BMI gain in adulthood. We test for selection and causation in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, which has followed a representative US cohort from age 14-22 in 1979 through age 47-55 in 2012. Using ordinal logistic regression, we test the selection hypothesis that overweight and obese adolescents were less likely to earn high school diplomas and bachelor's degrees. Then, controlling for selection with individual fixed effects, we estimate the causal effect of degree completion on BMI and obesity status. Among 18-year-old women, but not among men, being overweight or obese predicts lower odds of attaining higher levels of education. At age 47-48, higher education is associated with lower BMI, but 70-90% of the association is due to selection. Net of selection, a bachelor's degree predicts less than a 1 kg reduction in body weight, and a high school credential does not reduce BMI.
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