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Title: Do Subjective Beliefs Affect Obesity?
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Sylwestrzak, Malgorzata T. |
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Do Subjective Beliefs Affect Obesity? M.A. Thesis, University of Nevada - Reno, 2007 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) Keyword(s): Behavior, Antisocial; Body Mass Index (BMI); Gender Differences; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Modeling, Multilevel; Weight Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. This study evaluates whether youths' subjective beliefs in suffering the consequences of their actions influence their weight-related decisions. It uses five years of panel data from the 1997 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97), where youths were asked to estimate the probability of getting arrested if they steal a car. The estimate of the probability of getting arrested is believed to describe youth's belief in suffering the consequences of his/her bad behavior, including maintaining an unhealthy weight. Weighted ordinary least squares, weighted Generalized Estimating Equations, and the fixed-effect technique are used to estimate the impact of the belief variable on youth's body mass index (BMI). Logit models are employed to evaluate the effect of the belief variable on youth's intent to lose weight. Separate models are estimated for both genders and for dependent and independent youths. A statistically significant negative relationship between the belief variable and the BMI is found for independent females in the fixed-effects model. For males and dependent females, the relationship is not statistically significant. Two models for females and one model for males discover a statistically significant positive relationship between the belief variable and the independent youths' intent to lose weight. However, it is also found that as the BMI increases, the influence of the subjective belief on the intent to lose weight diminishes. |
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Bibliography Citation
Sylwestrzak, Malgorzata T. Do Subjective Beliefs Affect Obesity? M.A. Thesis, University of Nevada - Reno, 2007. |