Race/ethnic and sex differentials in body mass among US adults

Current research incompletely documents race/ethnic and sex disparities in body mass, especially at the national level. Data from the 2000 National Health Interview Survey, Sample Adult File, are used to examine overall and sex-specific disparities in body mass for non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, and Cuban Americans. Two complementary multivariate regression techniques, ordinary least squares and multinomial logistic, are employed to control for important confounding factors. We found significantly higher body masses for non-Hispanic Blacks, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexican Americans, compared to non-Hispanic Whites. Among very obese individuals, these relationships were more pronounced for females. Given the known health consequences associated with overweight and obesity, and recent trends toward increasing body mass in the United States, these findings underscore the need for public health policies that target specific subpopulations, in order to close the wide disparities in body mass in the United States.