Shackleton, Nichola Louise;
(2014)
Socioeconomic inequalities in young children’s weight status in the UK.
Doctoral thesis , UCL Institute of Education.
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Abstract
The high prevalence rates of child overweight and obesity within the UK is a serious problem, and one that has received a lot of attention from policy makers, researchers and the media. There is some evidence for socioeconomic inequalities in child overweight and obesity, with children in less advantaged socioeconomic groups at an increased risk of being overweight or obese. The nature of these inequalities is not well understood. Within this thesis I consider different aspects of socioeconomic status and their relationship with child overweight and obesity. There are three distinct strands of the investigation. Firstly, I consider whether socioeconomic inequalities in child overweight and obesity have changed over time. This is followed by two separate analyses of the relationship between obesity and overweight with parental income and education. I find evidence that socioeconomic inequalities in child overweight and obesity have widened over time, but only because of the relatively low increases in child overweight and obesity amongst children from the most advantaged families. I investigate whether there is an association between income and child overweight, and find that other parental characteristics, namely parental education, can explain correlations between familial income and child overweight and obesity. I find that father’s education has a stronger association with child overweight and obesity than does mother’s education, and that this is not solely because father’s education is a better predictor of the family’s financial and economic resources.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Title: | Socioeconomic inequalities in young children’s weight status in the UK |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Keywords: | Obesity, health inequalities, socioeconomic status, child health |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10021655 |
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