Department of Social Policy Centre for Economic Performance, LSE Health, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE London, UK.
Soc Sci Med. 2013 Sep;93:29-37. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.05.035. Epub 2013 Jun 13.
Can the rise in obesity among children be attributed to the intergenerational transmission of parental influences? Does this trend affect the influence of parent's socioeconomic status on obesity? This paper documents evidence of an emerging social gradient of obesity in pre-school children resulting from a combination of both socio-economic status and less intensive childcare associated with maternal employment, when different forms of intergenerational transmission are controlled for. We also estimate and decompose income related inequalities in child obesity. We take advantage of a uniquely constructed dataset from Spain that contains records form 13,358 individuals for a time period (years 2003-2006) in which a significant spike in the growth of child obesity was observed. Our results suggest robust evidence of both socioeconomic and intergenerational gradients. Results are suggestive of a high income effect in child obesity, alongside evidence that income inequalities have doubled in just three years with a pure income effect accounting for as much as 72-66% of these income inequality estimates, even when intergenerational transmission is accounted for. Although, intergenerational transmission does not appear to be gender specific, when accounted for, mother's labour market participation only explains obesity among boys but not among girls. Hence, it appears income and parental influences are the central determinants of obesity among children.
儿童肥胖率的上升能否归因于父母影响的代际传递？这一趋势是否会影响父母社会经济地位对肥胖的影响？本文记录了由于社会经济地位的结合以及与母亲就业相关的较少密集型儿童保育，在控制了不同形式的代际传递后，学前儿童肥胖的新兴社会梯度的证据。我们还估计和分解了与儿童肥胖相关的收入不平等。我们利用西班牙一个独特的数据集，该数据集包含了 13358 个人的记录，时间跨度为（2003-2006 年），在此期间观察到儿童肥胖率的显著增长。我们的结果表明了社会经济和代际梯度的有力证据。结果表明，儿童肥胖存在高收入效应，同时有证据表明，收入不平等仅在三年内就翻了一番，仅纯收入效应就占这些收入不平等估计的 72-66%，即使考虑到代际传递也是如此。尽管代际传递似乎没有性别特异性，但在考虑到代际传递时，母亲的劳动力市场参与仅解释了男孩的肥胖，而不是女孩的肥胖。因此，收入和父母的影响似乎是儿童肥胖的核心决定因素。
