Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Obesity (Silver Spring). 2010 Jun;18(6):1235-41. doi: 10.1038/oby.2009.463. Epub 2009 Dec 24.
The current impact of adolescent obesity on educational attainment is not clear. The objectives of our study were to determine whether adolescent obesity is associated with college degree attainment and how this association may have changed over time. We used data from a contemporary national cohort of over 4,000 persons who were adolescents (aged 14-18) in 1997 to assess the relationship between adolescent obesity and education. To assess for changes in this relationship over time, we also analyzed an older, similarly structured cohort of over 3,000 persons who were adolescents (aged 16-18) in 1981. Our primary outcome was college degree completion. We found that in the older cohort (adolescents in 1979), there were no differences in college degree attainment by adolescent weight status before and after adjustment. However, unadjusted analysis of the contemporary cohort (adolescents in 1997) demonstrated that those who were normal weight as adolescents had a higher prevalence of college degree attainment at follow-up compared to obese adolescents (24% vs. 10%). After adjustment for socio-demographic variables (age, sex, race, height, parental income-to-poverty ratio, parental education, aptitude test scores), obese adolescents were less likely to have attained a college degree compared to normal weight peers (adjusted risk ratio 0.61 95% confidence interval 0.38-0.83). Expectations for a future college degree did not vary by weight status and did not explain this observation. In conclusion, adolescent obesity is associated with lower likelihood of college completion. This relationship was not observed in an older cohort of adolescents.
目前，青少年肥胖对教育程度的影响尚不清楚。我们的研究目的是确定青少年肥胖是否与获得大学学位有关，以及这种关联随时间的变化趋势。我们使用了一个由超过 4000 人组成的当代全国队列的数据，这些人在 1997 年时处于青少年（14-18 岁）阶段，以评估青少年肥胖与教育之间的关系。为了评估这种关系随时间的变化，我们还分析了一个年龄更大、结构相似的队列，该队列由 3000 多名在 1981 年时处于青少年（16-18 岁）阶段的人组成。我们的主要结局是完成大学学业。我们发现，在年龄较大的队列（1979 年的青少年）中，在调整前后，青少年体重状况与大学学位获得之间没有差异。然而，对当代队列（1997 年的青少年）的未调整分析表明，与肥胖青少年相比，体重正常的青少年在随访时获得大学学位的比例更高（24%对 10%）。在调整了社会人口统计学变量（年龄、性别、种族、身高、父母收入与贫困比率、父母教育、能力倾向测试分数）后，肥胖青少年获得大学学位的可能性比体重正常的同龄人低（调整后的风险比 0.61，95%置信区间 0.38-0.83）。对未来大学学位的期望不因体重状况而异，也无法解释这一观察结果。总之，青少年肥胖与完成大学学业的可能性较低有关。在年龄较大的青少年队列中，没有观察到这种关系。
