Adolescent Obesity and Young Adult Psychosocial Outcomes:Gender and Racial Differences

摘要

Using a sample of 7,881 African American (915males and 1,073 females) and White (2,864 males and 3,029females) adolescents from Waves 1 and 3 of the NationalLongitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study exam-ined the psychosocial consequences that obese adolescentsencounter as they reach young adulthood. Results indicatethat obesity among adolescent females is associated with alower status attainment in young adulthood than normalweight adolescent females. In addition, obese adolescentfemales have more depressive symptoms in young adulthoodthan normal weight females, even after controlling for priordepressive symptoms in adolescence. Obesity status amongadolescent males is not associated with poorer psychosocialoutcomes in young adulthood. We did not find evidence of aninteraction between obesity status and race, indicating nosignificant differences in psychosocial outcomes for obeseWhite compared to obese African American adolescents.