Original articleTrends in Body Mass Index in Adolescence and Young Adulthood in the United States: 1959–2002
Section snippets
Background
The increase in BMI during the transition to adulthood is associated with several concomitant social trends that have redefined this life-stage in the United States. Over the past few decades, there has been a lengthening of the adolescent transition to adulthood because young people spend more years in education, thereby delaying job entry, marriage, and childbearing to later ages [16]. An important consequence of the lengthening of the transition to adulthood has been to extend the period of
Sample
Data were obtained from the following four nationally representative surveys: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) [24], National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) [25], National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) [26], and National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY79/NLSY97) [27]. For this analysis, we identified national datasets that either covered a wide time span (e.g., NHANES, NHIS) or were longitudinal (e.g., NLSY, Add Health) and that were often
BMI trends
Panel 1 in Figure 2 (BMI by age) shows the trends in BMI in adolescents and young adults using NHANES (1959–2002). Over this period, average BMI increased by about 2 kg/m2 in early adolescence and by about 3 kg/m2 in young adulthood. The increase in BMI over the period was not gradual. Hardly any increase was noticeable in the first four studies ranging from 1959 to 1980. Large increases in early adolescence appeared around 1990 in NHANES III (1988–1994). However, dramatic increases among young
Discussion
This study examined trends in race/ethnic and gender disparities in BMI during the transition from adolescence to young adulthood using nationally representative data that spanned the period from 1959 to 2002. We tested for significant differences in age trends in BMI by period, and found that the widely documented recent increase in BMI occurred during the adolescent ages in the 1990s, followed by an increase in BMI in the young adulthood ages a decade later in 2000. This pattern suggests that
Acknowledgements
This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgement is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for
References (41)
- et al.
Adolescent obesity: Towards evidence-based policy and environmental solutions
J Adolesc Health
(2009) - et al.
The association between body mass index in adolescence and obesity in adulthood
J Adolesc Health
(2008) - et al.
What is a cohort effect?Comparison of three statistical methods for modeling cohort effects in obesity prevalence in the United States, 1971-2006
Soc Sci Med
(2010) - et al.
Do birth cohorts matter?Age-period-cohort analyses of the obesity epidemic in the U.S.
Soc Sci Med
(2009) - et al.
Longitudinal physical activity and sedentary behavior trends: Adolescence to adulthood
Am J Prev Med
(2004) Disparities in obesity prevalence in the United States: Black women at risk
Am J Clin Nutr
(2009)- et al.
Validity of self-reported height and weight and predictors of bias in adolescents
J Adolesc Health
(2005) - et al.
The obesity epidemic in the United States—Gender, age, socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and geographic characteristics: A systematic review and meta-regression analysis
Epidemiol Rev
(2007) - et al.
Longitudinal trends in race/ethnic disparities in leading health indicators from adolescence to young adulthood
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med
(2006) The consequences of childhood overweight and obesity
Future Child
(2006)
Health consequences of obesity in youth: Childhood predictors of adult disease
Pediatrics
Getting heavier, younger: Birth cohort effects on obesity over the life course
Int J Obes (Lond)
Social disparities in BMI trajectories across adulthood by gender, race/ethnicity and lifetime socio-economic position: 1986-2004
Int J Epidemiol
Racial and ethnic differences in secular trends for childhood BMI, weight, and height
Obesity (Silver Spring)
The trend of mean BMI values of US adults, birth cohorts 1882-1986 indicates that the obesity epidemic began earlier than hitherto thought
Am J Hum Biol
The transition to post-industrial BMI values among US children
Am J Hum Biol
The Natural history of obesity: Weight change in a large US longitudinal survey
Ann Intern Med
Trends in the association of poverty with overweight among US adolescents, 1971-2004
JAMA
Age-related decline in physical activity: A synthesis of human and animal studies
Med Sci Sports Exerc
Cited by (74)
Association of Psychological Resilience With Healthy Lifestyle and Body Weight in Young Adulthood
2022, Journal of Adolescent HealthLife-long body mass index trajectories and mortality in two generations
2021, Annals of EpidemiologyChange in an urban food environment within a single year: Considerations for food-environment research and community health
2020, Preventive Medicine ReportsCitation Excerpt :Increasing rates of diet-related diseases (Lee et al., 2011; Ljungvall and Zimmerman, 2012; Flegal et al., 2012; Ogden et al., 2012; Gao et al., 2016) correspond to changes in local food environments.
Neighborhoods and health during the transition to adulthood: A scoping review
2020, Health and PlaceChildhood socioeconomic hardship, family conflict, and young adult hypertension: The Santiago Longitudinal Study
2020, Social Science and MedicineCitation Excerpt :Socioeconomic hardship was highly stable from childhood to adolescence, with economic disadvantage at adolescence linked to greater increases in BMI from adolescence to young adulthood, which related to hypertension. Normally growing youth typically show decelerated growth during the transition to adulthood, as pubertal influences decline and skeletal growth subsides (Lee et al., 2011). Individuals who had large BMI increases during this transition, however, were at risk of elevated blood pressure and hypertension, likely reflecting the proximal impact of physiological mechanisms associated with high body mass that induce hypertension (e.g., sodium retention, extracellular-fluid volume, etc., Kotsis et al., 2010).
Accuracy and congruence of physician and adolescent patient weight-related discussions: Teen CHAT (Communicating health: Analyzing talk)
2018, Patient Education and CounselingCitation Excerpt :Overweight and obesity among U.S. adolescents have risen to (or remain at) epidemic levels [1–4].