The Role of Weight Status in Intergenerational Correlations of Education

The research developed in this paper estimates the role of weight status in intergenerational correlations of educational attainment between women and their children. I consider a model of how obesity may influence the accumulation of human capital and its correlation across generations. Credit constraints for low-income families (who are at higher risk of obesity) are likely to amplify this correlation. Prior studies have found a causal relationship between weight status and economic outcomes, such as income. Thus, the transmission of obesity between generations may explain a portion of the estimates of intergenerational mobility previously characterized. I find that women who were overweight or obese in early adulthood obtain less education than their peers and also that their obese or overweight daughters accumulate less education than their peers. The direction of this contemporaneous relationship is reversed in boys, with obese and overweight sons having higher levels of education than those with BMI levels in the desired range. These results for investments in education are consistent with the evidence that obese women face a wage penalty relative to their non-obese peers, while obese males do not