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ORIGINAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATION |
1 From the Department of Epidemiology (WRR, JSK, and JS), Department of Biostatistics (CMS), Department of Nutrition (PG-L and JS), and the Carolina Population Center (WRR, PG-L, JSK, and CMS), University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC. 2 This study used data from Add Health, a program project designed by J Richard Udry, Peter S Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris and that was funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 (addhealth{at}unc.edu). 3 WRR was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Program, NIH (NCI) grant T32-CA09330, the Center for Human Science (Chapel Hill, NC), and the Thomas S and Caroline H Royster Jr Fellowship (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill); PG-L was supported by NIH (NICHD) grants R01-HD057194, R01 HD041375, and K01 HD044263; JSK was supported by NIH (NCMHHD) grants P60-MD000239 and P60-MD000244. 4 Reprints not available. Address correspondence to WR Robinson, Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, 3632 SPH Tower, 109 Observatory Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029; E-mail: wrrobins{at}umich.edu.
Background: In the United States, black women are at much greater risk of obesity than are black men. Little is known about the factors underlying this disparity.
Objective: We explored whether childhood sociodemographic factors (parental education, single-mother household, number of siblings, number of minors in household, birth order, and female caregiver's age) were associated with the gender disparity in obesity prevalence in young black adults in the United States.
Design: An analytic data set (n = 7747) was constructed from the nationally representative National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Childhood sociodemographic factors were assessed in 1994–1995 in nonimmigrant black and white youths aged 11–19 y. Obesity was assessed in 2001–2002. For each childhood sociodemographic factor, we evaluated whether the prevalence difference (female obesity minus male obesity) was modified by the factor. We described the contribution of each variable category to the overall prevalence difference.
Results: In unadjusted and multivariable-adjusted models, parental education consistently modified gender disparity in blacks (P = 0.01). The gender gap was largest with low parental education (16.7% of men compared with 45.4% of women were obese) and smallest with high parental education (28.5% of men compared with 31.4% of women were obese). In whites, there was little overall gender difference in obesity prevalence.
Conclusions: To our knowledge, this was the first study to document that the gender disparity in obesity prevalence in young black adults is concentrated in families with low parental education. In these low-socioeconomic-status families, obesity development is either under the control of distinct mechanisms in each gender, or men and women from these households adopt different obesity-related behaviors.
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  C. L Ogden Disparities in obesity prevalence in the United States: black women at risk Am. J. Clinical Nutrition, April 1, 2009; 89(4): 1001 - 1002. [Full Text] [PDF]
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