Obesity, family instability, and socioemotional health in adolescence

Abstract

The last two decades have witnessed dramatic increases in obesity and family instability. To the extent that the social stigma of obesity is a risk factor and family instability represents the potential compromise of important protective factors, their convergence may disrupt socioemotional health, especially during periods of heightened social uncertainty. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study found that obese youth at the start of high school had higher levels of internalizing symptoms and lower levels of perceived social integration in school only when they had also experienced multiple family transitions since birth. This pattern, however, did not hold for boys, and it did not extend to overweight (as opposed to obese) adolescents of either gender.

Introduction

A central tenet of the life course paradigm is that macro-level trends are “lived” on the micro level. In other words, individual trajectories are shaped by and, collectively, contribute to population dynamics. Indeed, the experiences of children and adolescents in the daily settings of their lives offer a valuable window into the significance of dramatic changes in the American population (Hogan and Goldscheider, 2002, Elder, 1998). In recent decades, two striking population trends have generated a great deal of concern and, in response, major public health and social policy initiatives. These two trends—increasing rates of obesity and family instability—are rarely connected in public discussions or scientific research. Yet, the implications of both for the socioemotional health of young people in the U.S. suggest that their convergence could be particularly problematic for both individuals and society.

As background, rates of obesity among American youth have been rising over the last twenty years while, simultaneously, changes in adult marriage, divorce, and cohabitation patterns have resulted in an increase in the number of family arrangements that young people live in before entering adulthood (NIDDKD, 2009, McLanahan, 2004). Both trends have socioemotional implications for youth, which is notable given that navigating social relations, building networks of social support, and developing positive identities contribute to lifelong health and socioeconomic attainment (Giordano, 2003). Despite the rising prevalence of obesity, the long-standing stigma attached to obesity in American youth culture has not weakened, which means that obese youth are at heightened risk for social exclusion (Crosnoe et al., 2008, Crandall, 1994). At the same time, higher levels of family instability can disrupt young people's development of relationship templates and senses of self in ways that put them at a disadvantage in social markets (Cavanagh and Huston, 2008). If the stigma of obesity reduces access to supportive and socializing peer relations on the “demand” side and family instability interferes with such access on the “supply” side, then the growing numbers of youth who are obese and come from unstable homes likely represent a segment of the American population in need of attention. In this way, family instability may be a family magnifier of the socioemotional risks of obesity. Such magnification likely plays out in school, a primary channel in socioeconomic attainment that doubles as a site of peer culture, and could indeed be more pronounced during periods of school in which young people are especially vulnerable socioemotionally (Crosnoe, 2011).

This study, therefore, draws on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine whether body size and family structure histories interact to predict socioemotional health in the first years of high school. Results will illuminate the intersection of family and peer contexts in the socioemotional problems of overweight youth that, in turn, could magnify the social, public, and economic health costs of rising obesity rates.