Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2005 Sep;95(9):1595-601.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2004.046292. Epub 2005 Jul 28.

Race/ethnicity, life-course socioeconomic position, and body weight trajectories over 34 years: the Alameda County Study

Peter T Baltrus  1 , John W Lynch, Susan Everson-Rose, Trivellore E Raghunathan, George A Kaplan
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Race/ethnicity, life-course socioeconomic position, and body weight trajectories over 34 years: the Alameda County Study

Peter T Baltrus et al. Am J Public Health. 2005 Sep.

Abstract

Objectives: We investigated whether race differences in weight gain over 34 years were because of socioeconomic position (SEP) and psychosocial and behavioral factors (physical activity, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, depression, marital status, number of children). We used a life-course approach to SEP with 4 measures of SEP (childhood SEP, education, occupation, income) and a cumulative measure of SEP.

Methods: We used mixed models and data collected from the Alameda County Study to examine the association between race and weight change slopes and baseline weight in men (n=1186) and women (n=1375) aged 17 to 40 years at baseline (in 1965).

Results: All subjects gained weight over time. African American women weighed 4.96 kg (P < .001) more at baseline and gained 0.10 kg/year (P = .043) more weight than White women. Black men weighed 2.41 kg (P = .006) more at baseline but did not gain more weight than White men. The association of race with weight gain in women was largely because of cumulative SEP score.

Conclusions: Interventions to prevent overweight and obesity should begin early in life and target the socioeconomically disadvantaged.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIGURE 1—
FIGURE 1—
Body weight by year of study for Black (black line) and White (gray line) women (a) and men (b) aged 17 to 40 years in 1965 in the Alameda County Study with adjustment for age and height.
FIGURE 1—
FIGURE 1—
Body weight by year of study for Black (black line) and White (gray line) women (a) and men (b) aged 17 to 40 years in 1965 in the Alameda County Study with adjustment for age and height.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Kuczmarski RJ, Robert J, Flegal KM, Campbell SM, Johnson CL. Increasing prevalence of overweight among US adults: the national health and nutrition examination surveys, 1960 to 1991. JAMA. 1994;272: 205–211. - PubMed
    1. Flegal KM, Carroll MD, Kuczmarski RJ, Johnson CL. Overweight and obesity in the United States: prevalence and trends, 1960–1994. Int J Obes. 1998;22: 39–47. - PubMed
    1. Mokdad AH, Serdula MK, Dietz WH, Bowman BA, Marks JS, Koplan JP. The spread of the obesity epidemic in the United States, 1991–1998. JAMA. 1999; 282:1519–1522. - PubMed
    1. Flegal KM, Carroll MD, Kuczmarski RJ, Johnson CL. Overweight and obesity in the United States: prevalence and trends, 1960–1994. Int J Obes. 1998;22: 39–47. - PubMed
    1. Holmes MD, Stampfer MJ, Wolf AM, et al. Can behavioral risk factors explain the difference in body mass index between African-American and European-American women? Ethn Dis. 1998;8:331–339. - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources