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Body Weight, Marital Status, and Changes in Marital Status.
1Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, USA.
Journal of Family Issues
|January 19, 2016
Summary
Living single is linked to lower body weight, while cohabiting or being married is associated with higher body weight. Marital transitions, particularly divorce, also impact weight, but gender does not moderate these effects.
Area of Science:
- Sociology
- Health Economics
- Demography
Background:
- Body weight is a significant health indicator.
- Marital status is a key demographic factor influencing lifestyle and health outcomes.
- Longitudinal studies are crucial for understanding changes in health and social factors over time.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between body weight and marital status.
- To examine how changes in marital status affect body weight over time.
- To explore potential gender differences in these relationships.
Main Methods:
- Utilized 20 years of data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY).
- Employed a latent growth curve model with fixed and random effects to analyze longitudinal data.
- Controlled for potential confounding variables not explicitly mentioned in the abstract.
Main Results:
- Individuals who are divorced or never married exhibit lower body weight compared to married or cohabiting individuals.
- Cohabitation and marriage are associated with increased body weight.
- Marital transitions, specifically divorce, significantly impact body weight.
- No significant gender moderation was observed in the relationship between marital status and body weight.
Conclusions:
- Marital status and its transitions are significant correlates of body weight.
- Social and economic factors associated with different marital statuses may influence weight trajectories.
- Future research could explore the mechanisms linking marital status changes to body weight dynamics.
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