Department of Sociology, University of Macau, Macau, China.
Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
Biodemography Soc Biol. 2021 Apr-Jun;66(2):132-144. doi: 10.1080/19485565.2020.1869919.
This study investigates two sources of education effects on obesity - achieved educational attainment and inherited genetic endowment for education. In doing so, we accomplish two goals. First, we assess the role of genetic confounding in the association between education and health. Second, we consider the heterogeneity in the extent to which genetic potential for education is realized, and we examine its impact on obesity. Data come from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Using a polygenic score approach, we find that, net of genetic confounding, holding a college degree is associated with a lower likelihood of obesity. Moreover, among individuals who hold a college degree, those with a high education polygenic score (a greater genetic propensity to succeed in education) are less likely to be obese than those with a relatively low education polygenic score. However, when individuals with a high education polygenic score do not have a college degree, their risk of obesity is similar to that of non-college-educated individuals with a low education polygenic score, suggesting that the effect of genetic endowment for education on obesity is conditional on college education.
本研究考察了教育对肥胖的两个影响来源——已获得的受教育程度和遗传的教育赋予。在这样做的过程中，我们实现了两个目标。首先，我们评估了遗传混杂在教育与健康之间关联中的作用。其次，我们考虑了遗传上实现教育潜力的程度的异质性，并研究了它对肥胖的影响。数据来自全国青少年至成人健康纵向研究。我们使用多基因评分方法发现，在消除遗传混杂后，拥有大学学位与肥胖的可能性较低有关。此外，在拥有大学学位的个体中，那些具有高教育多基因评分（在教育中取得成功的更大遗传倾向）的人比那些具有相对较低教育多基因评分的人更不容易肥胖。然而，当具有高教育多基因评分的个体没有大学学位时，他们肥胖的风险与具有低教育多基因评分的未受过大学教育的个体相似，这表明遗传赋予教育对肥胖的影响是有条件的，需要接受大学教育。
