CIAO DATE: 03/06

Family Background and Adolescent Weight: An Examination of Social and Genetic Influences

Abstract

This research investigates the family-level social factors associated with adolescent weight after accounting for genetic influences by using sibling resemblance models and the genetic sample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. By conducting sibling model analyses in a structural equation framework, we account for unmeasured family background characteristics and determine the proportion of the variation between families and that within families. We estimate models for all sibling pairs and separate models for each sibling-pair type (i.e., monozygotic twins, dizygotic twins, full siblings, half siblings) and test for differences in the influence of various family background factors across sibling-pair types. Family status characteristics, as well as family behaviors related to physical activity, inactivity and mealtime behavior, are associated with adolescent weight. The models of the different pair types bound the estimates of these family background effects and reveal that social, as well as genetic factors, contribute to an intergenerational similarity in weight.

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