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Height and body mass index values of nineteenth-century New York legislators.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Previous studies of mid-nineteenth-century American BMI values have used data created by military academies and penitentiaries. This paper uses an alternative data set, constructed from legislative documents in which the heights and weights of New York State legislators were recorded. The results reveal that middle- to upper-middle class Americans maintained BMI values closer to the modern standard than did students and prisoners. The average BMI value among this group was 24 and their height-weight combinations did not greatly diverge from historical mortality risk optima. PMID: 19853542 [PubMed - as supplied by p...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - September 25, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Bodenhorn H Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Genetics of human height.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Height is correlated with risk to certain diseases and various socio-economic outcomes. As an easy to observe and measure trait, it has been a classic paradigm in the emergence of fundamental concepts regarding inheritance and genetics. Resemblances in height between relatives suggest that 80% of height variation is under genetic control with the rest controlled by environmental factors such as diet and disease exposure. Nearly a century ago it was recognised that many genes were likely to be involved but it is only with recent advances in technology that it has become possible to comprehensively search the human genom...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - September 16, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: McEvoy BP, Visscher PM Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Fat and out in Salerno and its province: Adolescent obesity and early school leaving in Southern Italy.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We examine the determinants of obesity and its role in influencing early school leaving amongst adolescents in the city of Salerno and its province in Southern Italy. A human capital investment model is employed and this provides a framework within which to analyse the interrelated 'decisions' regarding schooling and overeating, taking into account the importance of time preference and the differential effects of adolescent obesity for males and females. We find that: (a) there is a strong and robust positive association between obesity and early school leaving; (b) there is evidence to support the notion that this ass...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - September 14, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Barone A, O'Higgins N Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Taller - Healthier - more equal? The biological standard of living in Switzerland in the second half of the 20th century.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper analyzes the trends in physical stature and body mass of the Swiss population born between 1955 and 1985, based on data collected in the "Living in Switzerland Survey" (Swiss Household Panel) of 2004. Aside from the time trend, we investigate the impact of educational and marital status as well as spatial effects on height and BMI. The results corroborate previous studies: average height increased during the second half of the 20th century for both women and men, better educated individuals are tallest, divorced men are shorter than married men and urban populations enjoy a height advantage over rural ones. ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - September 11, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Kues AB Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

The height and BMI values of West Point cadets after the Civil War.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
West Point cadets born in the 1880s were taller (+1.46cm) than those born in the 1860s and had significantly higher BMI values (+0.85). However, the cadets were on average undernourished by modern standards, with today's average reference values being about 5 BMI units higher than those of the cadets. Substantial regional differences existed for both height and weight. While West Point cadets born in the 1880s in the Upper South achieved on average a height of 173.2cm and a BMI of 21.0, their peers from New England were 171.5cm tall with a BMI of 21.6. PMID: 19786374 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Eco...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - September 11, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Hiermeyer M Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Welcome John Cawley.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19782011 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Economics and Human Biology)
Source: Economics and Human Biology - September 10, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Komlos J Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Decomposing body mass index gaps between Mediterranean countries: A counterfactual quantile regression analysis.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Wide cross-country variation in obesity rates has been reported between European Union member states. Although the existing cross-country differences have not been analyzed in depth, they contain important information on health production determinants. In this paper we apply a methodology for conducting standardized cross-country comparisons of body mass index (BMI). We draw on estimations of the marginal density function of BMI for Italy and Spain in 2003, two countries with similar GDP and socio-economic conditions. We produce different counterfactual distribution estimates using covariates (health production inputs)...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - September 2, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Costa-Font J, Fabbri D, Gil J Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Why no adult stunting penalty or height premium? Estimates from native Amazonians in Bolivia.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Among adults of industrial nations, growth stunting (<-2 SD height Z score) is associated with worse indicators of adult well-being (e.g., income). Does adult stunting also inflict private costs in traditional societies? Adult stunting penalties or height premiums might only emerge when traditional societies modernize. Here we estimate the association between adult stunting and indicators of adult well-being using data from a panel study in progress among the Tsimane', a foraging-farming society of native Amazonians in Bolivia. Subjects included 248 women and 255 men >/=age 22 measured annually during 5 consecut...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - September 2, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Godoy R, Magvanjav O, Nyberg C, Eisenberg DT, McDade TW, Leonard WR, Reyes-García V, Huanca T, Tanner S, Gravlee C, Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

The growth of obesity and technological change.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper presents a dynamic theory of body weight and develops its implications. We argue that technological change has induced weight growth by making home- and market-production more sedentary and by lowering food prices through agricultural innovation. In addition, we illustrate that, while exercise and food intake are complements, reductions in exercise will always raise optimal body weight, as will increases in food intake. We also characterize how body weight varies with income, both within a country, and across countries. Within a country, income may have an inverted U-shaped relationship with body weight, due...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - August 25, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Lakdawalla D, Philipson T Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

The timing of the rise in U.S. obesity varies with measure of fatness.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There are several ways to measure fatness and obesity, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. The primary measure for tracking the prevalence of obesity has historically been body mass index (BMI). This paper compares long-run trends in the prevalence of obesity when obesity is defined using skinfold thickness instead of BMI, using data from the full series of U.S. National Health Examination Surveys. The results indicate that when one uses skinfold thickness rather than BMI to define obesity, the rise in the prevalence of obesity is detectable 10-20 years earlier. This underscores the importance of examining mult...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - August 4, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Burkhauser RV, Cawley J, Schmeiser MD Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Height and BMI values of German conscripts in 2000, 2001 and 1906.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We examine the height and weight of 320,000 German 18-22-year-old conscripts born between 1979 and 1982. We show that height and BMI outcomes are associated with the socio-economic status of a person. For example, we find a positive correlation between education and height and a negative one between education and BMI. A West-East and a North-South gradient in both height and BMI is found. Today, West German recruits are about 5.5cm taller than their peers 43 years ago and about 12.5cm taller than those 100 years ago, reflecting a substantial improvement in the biological standard of living. To this day, however, indivi...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - July 23, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Hiermeyer M Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Secular trend in height in Al Ain-United Arab Emirates.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Correlation between cycles in human stature and those in economic variables is well established. A recent review of international trends in this area provided information from most parts of the world but none on Arabs in the Middle East or more specifically the gulf region. The United Arab Emirates experienced a transformation in economic and social life followed the discovery of oil in the late 1960s and the wealth that it generated. No data is available on human growth at this period of time because its population never had health services prior to the 1970s. A study on conventional cardiovascular risk factors in 200...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - July 23, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Baynouna LM, Revel AD, Nagelkerke NJ, Jaber TM, Omar AO, Ahmed NM, Naziruldeen MK, Al Sayed MF, Nour FA, Abdouni S Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Does smoking affect body weight and obesity in China?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study re-examines these relationships using data from China, the largest consumer and manufacturer of tobacco in the world that is also experiencing a steady rise in obesity rates. We focus on the impact of the total number of cigarettes smoked per day on individuals' body mass index (BMI) and on the likelihood of being overweight and obese. Instrumental variables estimation is used to correct for the endogeneity of cigarette smoking. We find a moderate negative and significant relationship between cigarette smoking and BMI. Smoking is also negatively related to being overweight and obese, but the marginal effects are...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - July 20, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Fang H, Ali MM, Rizzo JA Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Infant mortality decline in Armenia: Why with uneven rates?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In this paper we analyse infant mortality in Armenia in terms of not only its socio-economic and geographic distribution but also changes in its age structure. Primary data on live births and infant deaths recorded in the official statistics and data of "Armenia Demographic and Health Survey 2005" are studied. We find that the socio-economically disadvantaged portion of the Armenian population is at a significantly increased risk of infant mortality; that geographically the mortality risk is unequally distributed, and is highest in the poorest region, Shirak; and that the recorded decline in infant mortality is due ent...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - July 14, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Hakobyan M, Yepiskoposyan L Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Height, wealth, and health: An overview with new data from three longitudinal studies.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This overview, based on a literature review and new data from the three cohorts (Whitehall Studies I and II, and the Vietnam Experience Study), has four objectives: (a) to outline the major determinants of height, so providing an indication as to what exposures this characteristic may capture; (b) to summarise, by reviewing reports from large scale studies, the relation between adult height and a range of disease outcomes - both somatic and psychiatric - with particular emphasis on coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke; (c) to discuss why these relationships may exist, in particular, the role, if any, of socioeconomi...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - June 27, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Batty GD, Shipley MJ, Gunnell D, Huxley R, Kivimaki M, Woodward M, Lee CM, Smith GD Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

The nonlinear link between height and wages in Germany, 1985-2004.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Based on data of the German Socio-Economic Panel, this article investigates the relationship between height and wages by gender. Unlike previous investigations, which have been limited to an examination of linear effects, this one finds that height influences on wages are curvilinear, and more so for men than for women. More specifically, it finds that women who are shorter than average and men who are somewhat taller than average, but not among the tallest, enjoy significant wage advantages. Furthermore, using Blinder's decomposition to determine two components of wage differences, we find that these differences can b...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - June 25, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Hübler O Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Evolution of obesity by social status in France, 1981-2003.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Although France is less affected by the rise in obesity than neighboring countries, the prevalence of obesity has increased, changing the distribution of this pathology in the population. We analyze this evolution by social status, education, income and gender, region of residence, using the three French national Health Surveys conducted in 1981, 1992 and 2003. The average body weight of both women and men has increased in France since 1981 and accelerated since the 1990s. This trend is obtained among all age groups. Nevertheless, this process did not affect all socioeconomic groups similarly. Geographical differences ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - June 22, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: de Saint Pol T Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Life at the top: The benefits of height.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index daily poll of the US population, taller people live better lives, at least on average. They evaluate their lives more favorably, and they are more likely to report a range of positive emotions such as enjoyment and happiness. They are also less likely to report a range of negative experiences, like sadness, and physical pain, though they are more likely to experience stress and anger, and if they are women, to worry. These findings cannot be attributed to different demographic or ethnic characteristics of taller people, but are almost entirely explained by the positiv...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - June 17, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Deaton A, Arora R Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Childhood overweight in the United States: A quantile regression approach.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The prevalence of overweight children in the United States has increased dramatically over the past two decades, and is creating well-known public health problems. Moreover, there is also evidence that children who are not overweight are becoming heavier. We use quantile regression models along with standard ordinary least squares (OLS) models to explore the correlates of childhood weight status and overweight as measured by the Body Mass Index (BMI). This approach allows the effects of covariates to vary depending on where in the BMI distribution a child is located. Our results indicate that OLS masks some of the impo...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - May 22, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Stifel DC, Averett SL Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Urbanization and the spread of diseases of affluence in China.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We quantify, track and explain the distribution of overweight and of hypertension across Chinese provinces differentiated by their degree of urbanicity over the period 1991-2004. We construct an index of urbanicity from longitudinal data on community characteristics from the China Health and Nutrition Survey and compute, for the first time, a rank-based measure of inequality in disease risk factors by degree of urbanicity. Prevalence rates of overweight and hypertension almost doubled between 1991 and 2004 and these disease risk factors became less concentrated in more urbanized areas. Decomposition analysis reveals th...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - May 22, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Van de Poel E, O'Donnell O, Van Doorslaer E Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Does the U.S. Food Stamp Program contribute to adult weight gain?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Obesity poses substantial costs both to the individual and society, mainly through its impact on health and labor productivity. Because obesity is more prevalent among the poor some have raised concerns that food assistance programs may encourage excess weight. This paper investigates whether the U.S. Food Stamp Program contributes to adult participants' weight as measured by body mass index (BMI). Results suggest that the typical female food stamp participant's BMI is indeed more than 1 unit higher than someone with the same socioeconomic characteristics who is not in the program. For the average American woman, who i...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - May 22, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Zagorsky JL, Smith PK Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

The social gradient in health: The effect of absolute income and subjective social status assessment on the individual's health in Europe.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Using data on individuals aged between 50 and 65 from 6 European countries, this study investigates the effect of absolute income and subjective social status assessment on health in the light of medical evidence indicating that the individual's position in the social hierarchy undermines his/her mental and physical health. The paper shows that individuals' own income has a positive, but modest effect on health. Importantly, subjective social status assessment has a significant effect on all health measurements. Finally, the results show that individuals from deprived families (when at the age of 14) have poorer physic...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - May 13, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Theodossiou I, Zangelidis A Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Weight gain in adolescents and their peers.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We describe trends and features of adolescent BMI in a nationally representative dataset and document correlations in weight gain among peers. We find strong correlations between own body mass index (BMI) and peers' BMI's. Though the correlations are especially strong in the upper ends of the BMI distribution, the relationship is smooth and holds over almost the entire range of adolescent BMI. Furthermore, the results are robust to the inclusion of school fixed effects and basic controls for other confounding factors such as race, sex, and age. Some recent research in this area considers whether or not adolescent weight ga...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - May 13, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Halliday TJ, Kwak S Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

The biological standard of living in colonial Korea, 1910-1945.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper uses human stature as a biological indicator of living standards in colonial Korea (1910-1945). We show that the average height of adult Koreans increased from the beginning to the end of Japanese rule from about 164 to 166cm. Height increased slightly before 1910 and dramatically after 1945, but during occupation declined slightly for a few years, only to rise rapidly through the late 1920s, and then stagnated until liberation. This finding is corroborated by a similar study of the Taiwanese under Japanese rule. The deterioration in the growth rates of both peoples from about 1930 to 1945 may be due to the ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - May 4, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Choi SJ, Schwekendiek D Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Socioeconomic status, height, and obesity in children.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The substantial increase in the prevalence of child obesity over recent decades and its association with a number of negative health and economic outcomes suggests its strong potential as an influence on the lifecourse development of health and productivity. This paper evaluates interactive effects between family socioeconomic status (SES) and height on child obesity in the United States. Using the 1999-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES), the results of this paper confirm previous findings that taller children exhibit greater propensity towards obesity as measured by body mass index (BMI) a...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - May 2, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Murasko JE Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Secular trends in social class differences of height, weight and BMI of boys from two schools in Lisbon, Portugal (1910-2000).Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Data on the physical growth of children can provide useful information about the temporal changes in the economic conditions of the society in which they live and the extent of social inequalities within that society as well. Several studies have documented secular changes in the physical growth of children or of adult height, but seldom have the socioeconomic differences in secular trend been reported. The aim of this study is to examine differences in the secular trend of height, weight and BMI of 10-16-year-old boys enrolled in two schools of opposite socioeconomic makeup in Lisbon, Portugal, in the early and late 2...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - May 2, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Cardoso HF, Caninas M Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

The anthropometric history of Argentina, Brazil and Peru during the 19th and early 20th century.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This anthropometric study focuses on the histories of three important Latin American countries - Brazil, Peru, and Argentina - during the 19th century, and tests hypotheses concerning their welfare trends. While non-farm Brazil and Lima, Peru, started at relatively low height levels, Brazil made substantial progress in nutritional levels from the 1860s to the 1880s. In contrast, Lima remained at low levels. Argentinean men were tall to begin with, but heights stagnated until 1910. The only exception were farmers and landowners, who benefited from the export boom. PMID: 19451040 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - April 23, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Baten J, Pelger I, Twrdek L Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

A head above the rest: Height and adolescent psychological well-being.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we examine the effect of adolescent height on mental health as measured by Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) scores and Rosenberg Self-Esteem (RSE) scores. We find evidence that height is associated with fewer symptoms of depression among females 17-19 years of age, and among males 12-19 years of age. The negative relationship between height and depression among males persists after controlling for body mass index (BMI), differences in pubertal timing, and individual fixed effects, but does not explain the effect of height on educ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - April 16, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Rees DI, Sabia JJ, Argys LM Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Obesity and labor market outcomes among legal immigrants to the United States from developing countries.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper studies the association between weight and labor market outcomes among legal immigrants to the United States from developing countries using the first nationally representative survey of such individuals. We find that being overweight or obese is associated with a lower probability of employment among women who have been in the U.S. less than five years, but we find no such correlation among men who have been in the U.S. less than five years, or among women or men who have been in the U.S. longer than five years. We generally find no significant association between weight and either wages, sector of employme...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - April 16, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Cawley J, Han E, Norton EC Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Growing up under generalized violence: An ecological study of homicide rates and secular trends in age at menarche in Colombia, 1940s-1980s.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We examined secular changes in mean age at menarche among 5577 Colombian women born between 1941 and 1989, and correlated those changes with nation-wide rates of homicide and real gross domestic product per capita (GDP) at the year of birth and at the year at age 5, within predefined historical periods. The mean (standard error) rate of change in age at menarche by year of birth was -0.55 (0.02) years/decade. The rate of change was not constant, but varied between historical periods as follows: -1.44, -0.14, -0.60, and -0.36 years/decade for the periods 1941-1947, 1948-1958, 1959-1978, and 1979-1989, respectively. The chan...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - March 30, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Villamor E, Chavarro JE, Caro LE Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Racial differences in body mass indices of men imprisoned in 19th Century Texas.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A limited amount of research has been done on the body mass index values of 19th century Americans. This paper uses Texas prison records to demonstrate that, in contrast to today's distributions, most BMI values were in the normal range. Only 21.5% and 1.2% of the population was overweight or obese, while today comparable figures are 36% and 23%. There was also little change in BMI values between 1876 and 1919. Farmers were consistently heavier than non-farmers, while Southwestern men had lower BMI values than their counterparts from other regions of the US. BMI values indicate that 19th century African-Americans, and ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - March 1, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Carson SA Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Body mass index, socio-economic status and socio-behavioral practices among Tz'utujil Maya women.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study investigates the associations between body mass index (BMI), socio-economic status (SES) and related socio-behavioral practices including marriage and market visits in a population of adult Tz'utujil Maya women in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, aged 18-82. Mixed qualitative and quantitative methods include cross-sectional anthropometric measurements and semi-structured interviews gathered in 2007, as well as participant observation and purposive interviews conducted in 2007-2008. The regional quota sample of 53 semi-structured interviews was designed to be representative of the cantones (municipal divisions) ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - February 23, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Nagata JM, Valeggia CR, Barg FK, Bream KD Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Protein supply and nutritional status in nineteenth century Bavaria, Prussia and France.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
What determined regional height differences in the 19th century? We compare anthropometric evidence with production estimates of different food products and other economic variables. To this end, we concentrate on 179 rural regions and 29 towns in Bavaria (Southeast Germany). This regionally disaggregated level of analysis enables us to study the influence of the local supply of different food products on the nutritional status of the population, among which milk turned out particularly important. This result is tested and confirmed with regional data from Prussia and France. PMID: 19285929 [PubMed - as supplied by...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - February 21, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Baten J Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Early childhood length-for-age is associated with the work status of Filipino young adults.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study examines the relationship of linear growth restriction at 2 years of age to work status in young adults who have, for the most part completed their schooling and further explores whether this relationship differs by gender. The analysis sample of 1795 was drawn from participants in the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey, which followed individuals from birth to age 20-22 years. Work status in 2005 was represented by three categories: not working, working in an informal job, and working in a formal job. Formal work in the Philippines, as in most countries, is associated with regular hours, higher wages...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - February 6, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Carba DB, Tan VL, Adair LS Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Obesity and labour market success in Finland: The difference between having a high BMI and being fat.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper examines the relationship between obesity and labour market success in Finland, using various indicators of individual body composition along with body mass index (BMI). Weight, height, fat mass and waist circumference are measured by health professionals. We find that only waist circumference has a negative association with wages for women, whereas no obesity measure is significant in the linear wage models for men. However, all measures of obesity are negatively associated with women's employment probability and fat mass is negatively associated with men's employment probability. We also find that the use ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - February 2, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Johansson E, Böckerman P, Kiiskinen U, Heliövaara M Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Requiem for nutrition as the cause of IQ gains: Raven's gains in Britain 1938-2008.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The hypothesis that enhanced nutrition is mainly responsible for massive IQ gains over time borrows plausibility from the height gains of the 20th century. However, evidence shows that the two trends are largely independent. A detailed analysis of IQ trends on the Raven's Progressive Matrices tests in Britain dramatizes the poverty of the nutrition hypothesis. A multiple factor hypothesis that operates on three levels is offered as an alternative instrument of causal explanation. The Raven's data show that over the 65 years from circa 1942 to the present, taking ages 5-15 together, British school children have gained 1...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - February 2, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Flynn JR Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Income and body mass index in Europe.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The problem of obesity is alarming public health authorities around the world. Therefore, it is important to study its determinants. In this paper, we explore the empirical relationship between household income and body mass index (BMI) in nine European Union countries. Our findings suggest that, in general, the association is negative for women and nonexistent for men. Moreover, once we decompose household income into "own labor earnings" and "other household income", we find that the different relationship for men and women appears to be driven by the negative relationship between BMI and "own labor earnings" for wom...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - January 31, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: García Villar J, Quintana-Domeque C Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Paradoxical malnutrition in mother-child pairs: Untangling the phenomenon of over- and under-nutrition in underdeveloped economies.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
As economic development and urbanization proceed globally, the coexistence of under- and over-nutrition within the same household, sometimes termed 'paradoxical' or 'dual burden' malnutrition is increasingly being reported. We used Demographic and Health Survey data sets from 18 lower and middle income countries to explore paradoxical forms of malnutrition (maternal overweight with child underweight or stunting) in mother-child pairs. Multinomial logistic regression was used to estimate the odds of discordant pairs after adjusting for a number of important covariates. Several factors were significantly associated with ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - January 31, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Jehn M, Brewis A Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Food prices, access to food outlets and child weight.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study examines the importance of food prices and restaurant and food store outlet availability for child body mass index (BMI). We use the 1998, 2000 and 2002 waves of the child-mother merged files from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth combined with fruit and vegetable and fast food price data obtained from the American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Association and outlet density data on fast food and full-service restaurants and supermarkets, grocery stores and convenience stores obtained from Dun & Bradstreet. Using a random effects estimation model, we found that a 10% increase in ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - January 24, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Powell LM, Bao Y Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Investing in early human development: Timing and economic efficiency.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Policy discussions to ameliorate socioeconomic (SES) inequalities are increasingly focused on investments in early childhood. Yet such interventions are costly to implement, and clear evidence on the optimal time to intervene to yield a high economic and social return in the future is meagre. The majority of successful early childhood interventions start in the preschool years. However socioeconomic gradients in cognitive skills, socio-emotional functioning and health can be observed by age three, suggesting that preventative programmes starting earlier in childhood may be even more effective. We discuss the optimal ti...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - January 21, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Doyle O, Harmon CP, Heckman JJ, Tremblay RE Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

The physical stature of Jewish men in the German Principality of Salm, 1802-1807.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Using information from passports, we show that average height of Jewish men in the German Principality of Salm in 1802-1807 was about 155.4cm, and thus well below the contemporary European average. PMID: 19195937 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Economics and Human Biology)
Source: Economics and Human Biology - January 16, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Aschoff D, Hiermeyer M Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Recent growth of children in the two Koreas: A meta-analysis.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study employs South Korean data published by the Korean Research Institute for Standards and Science in 1997 and by the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards in 2004, comparing them to North Korean data stemming from the 1997 and 2002 nutritional surveys conducted by the United Nations. Furthermore, this article makes use of anthropometric measurements of North Korean refugee children immigrating to South Korea from 2000 to 2007. In 1997, South Korean preschool children were found on average to be 6-7cm (2-3in.) taller and about 3kg (6.6 pounds) heavier than their Northern counterparts; in 2002, the average gap w...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - January 16, 2009 Category: Biology Authors: Schwekendiek D, Pak S Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Trends in U.S. food prices, 1950-2007.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The potential effect that food prices may have on the health of the U.S. population needs to be further explored, particularly in light of the rising food prices currently being observed. Declining food prices over time have been singled out as a main contributor, for example, to the rising trend in obesity. In this paper we use data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Association, the Consumer Expenditure Survey, and the United States Department of Agriculture to analyze trends in various types of food prices, to create a food price index, and to estimate the price of a ca...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - November 6, 2008 Category: Biology Authors: Christian T, Rashad I Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Prenatal care demand and its effects on birth outcomes by birth defect status in Argentina.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Our objective was to identify determinants of prenatal care demand and evaluate the effects of this demand on low birth weight and preterm birth. Delay in initiating prenatal care was modeled as a function of pregnancy risk indicators, enabling factors, and regional characteristics. Conditional maximum likelihood (CML) estimation was used to model self-selection into prenatal care use when estimating its effectiveness. Birth registry data was collected post delivery on infants with and without common birth defects born in 1995-2002 in Argentina using a standard procedure. Several maternal health and fertility indicator...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - October 30, 2008 Category: Biology Authors: Wehby GL, Murray JC, Castilla EE, Lopez-Camelo JS, Ohsfeldt RL Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Obesity and labor market outcomes in Denmark.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper analyzes the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and employment status and wages. The analysis uses a unique data set from a Danish panel survey from 1995 and 2000, combined with administrative registers, covering 8000 individuals. Results show a negative effect of BMI on employment for women and an inverted u-shaped effect for men. Results further indicate that in the private sector BMI has a negative effect on wages for women but an inverted u-shaped effect on wages for men, whereas results from the public sector show that BMI has no influence on wages for either men or women. PMID: 18993121 [Pu...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - October 2, 2008 Category: Biology Authors: Greve J Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Socioeconomic status and physical stature in 19th-century Bavaria.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We present analyses of 19th-century Bavarian conscript records, which cover the whole male population at age 21 and which are unusually rich in content. They include not only occupations of the conscripts, but that of the parents alike, and also the wealth of the conscripts, other family characteristics and their diseases at the time of the conscription. This enables us to investigate the relationship between the conscripts' and the parents' socioeconomic status as well as their effects on the height of the conscripts. Overall, the conscripts' occupations match that of their parents rather well, and deviations can mainly b...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - August 12, 2008 Category: Biology Authors: Lantzsch J, Schuster K Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Determinants of well-being in North Korea: Evidence from the post-famine period.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
North Korea has survived the breakdown of the communist bloc and has been immune to the democratization process of the 1990s. In spite of national famines and economic collapse, the totalitarian regime in Pyongyang maintains a firm grip on its power. Reliable information on the population's biosocial welfare is scarce. Using height and weight data of 5991 North Korean pre-school children measured in 2002, we investigate determinants of height-for-age z-score (HAZ), weight-for-age z-score (WAZ) and weight-for-height z-score (WHZ) as an indicator for child health. We find a statistically significant impact of the age of ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - August 9, 2008 Category: Biology Authors: Schwekendiek D Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Overweight in adolescents: Implications for health expenditures.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We consider a compelling research question raised by the growing prevalence of overweight among adolescents: do overweight adolescents incur greater health care expenditures than adolescents of normal weight? To address this question, we use data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and estimate a two-part, generalized linear model (GLM) of health spending. Considering separate models by gender, we find that overweight females incur $790 more in annual expenditures than those of normal weight but we find no expenditure differences by bodyweight for males. We find that mental health spending is associated wi...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - August 6, 2008 Category: Biology Authors: Monheit AC, Vistnes JP, Rogowski JA Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Historical trends in height, weight, and body mass: Data from U.S. Major League Baseball players, 1869-1983.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We employ a unique dataset of Major League Baseball (MLB) players - a select, healthy population - to examine trends in height, weight, and body mass in birth cohorts from 1869 to 1983. Over that 115-year time period, U.S. born MLB players have gained, on average, approximately 3in. (7.6cm) in height and 27.0lb (12.2kg) in weight, which has contributed a 1.6-unit increase in the body mass index. Where comparable data are available, U.S. born MLB players are about 2.0in. (5.1cm) taller and 20.0lb (9.1kg) heavier but substantially less obese than males in the general U.S. population. But both groups exhibit similar heigh...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - July 16, 2008 Category: Biology Authors: Saint Onge JM, Krueger PM, Rogers RG Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals

Using graphical chain models to analyze differences in structural correlates of undernutrition in Benin and Bangladesh.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Undernutrition among children is one of the most important health problems in developing countries. In order to understand the complex pathways affecting undernutrition which is crucial for policy interventions, one needs to explicitly model the dependence chain of immediate, intermediate, and underlying factors affecting undernutrition. Graphical chain models are used here to investigate the determinants of undernutrition in Benin and Bangladesh. While the dependence chain affecting undernutrition contains many common elements, the influence of demographic, cultural, and socioeconomic factors seems to have stronger di...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - July 15, 2008 Category: Biology Authors: Foraita R, Klasen S, Pigeot I Tags: Econ Hum Biol Source Type: journals