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Title: Does Family Instability Make Girls Fat? Gender Differences Between Instability and Weight
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Hernandez, Daphne C.
Pressler, Emily
Dorius, Cassandra J.
Mitchell, Katherine Stamps
Does Family Instability Make Girls Fat? Gender Differences Between Instability and Weight
Journal of Marriage and Family 76,1 (February 2014): 175-190.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12080/abstract
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Inc. => Wiley Online
Keyword(s): Age at Birth; Body Mass Index (BMI); Depression (see also CESD); Family Structure; Fertility, Multiple Partners; Gender Differences; Household Composition; Life Course; Marital History/Transitions; Marital Instability; Menarche/First Menstruation; Obesity; Parents, Single; Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (see Self-Esteem); Self-Esteem; Weight

Data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Young Adult file were used to explore the relationship between the number of family structure transitions experienced from birth to age 18 and weight status in young adulthood. This was done by testing both linear risk and threshold effect models by gender (N = 3,447). The findings suggest that a linear risk approach best describes the relationship between family instability during childhood and weight status in young adulthood. Specifically, the cumulative family structure transitions children experienced from birth to age 18 place females, but not males, at greater risk for being overweight/obese in young adulthood. Sensitivity analyses indicated that cumulative family structure instability—and not formations or dissolutions separately—drove the main results. Birth order did not affect the findings. Increasing children's support systems during times of instability may reduce female children's risk of being overweight/obese as young adults.
Bibliography Citation
Hernandez, Daphne C., Emily Pressler, Cassandra J. Dorius and Katherine Stamps Mitchell. "Does Family Instability Make Girls Fat? Gender Differences Between Instability and Weight." Journal of Marriage and Family 76,1 (February 2014): 175-190.