Using Cumulative Risk Models to Link Social Disadvantage to Obesity Risk in the Transition to Young Adulthood

Hedwig Lee, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

I assess the relationship between social disadvantage in childhood and adolescence and obesity trajectories from adolescence into young adulthood using cumulative risk models and nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The cumulative risk model assumes that it is the accumulation of risk factors across a variety of domains, rather than a single risk factor that is important in adversely impacting child developmental and health outcomes. I utilize multiple measures of health/obesity risk and multinomial logistic regression models to investigate what factors place individuals at risk for obesity, which populations (defined by sex, race/ethnicity, and poverty) face greater levels of cumulative risk, whether risk factors operate in a cumulative manner (where higher levels of risk are associated with higher levels of obesity risk) and whether cumulative risk measures mediate the relationships between poverty status and obesity and ethnic minority status and obesity.