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Fee, Holly - May 2019.pdf (909.41 KB)

ETD Abstract Container

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Obesity and First Birth: Timing, Union Status, And Subsequent Union Formation And Dissolution

Fee, Holly
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555642839487787

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, Sociology.
During the past twenty years, the United States has experienced increasing prevalence rates of obesity, especially among women of childbearing age. For adolescent girls aged 12 to 19, the obesity prevalence rate has more than doubled since 1994, and it has increased by more than 15% for women aged 20 to 39 during the same time period. Consequently, individuals of prime childbearing age are more likely to be obese than prior generations, which is likely to redefine family formation behaviors. This dissertation examines how obesity is associated with first birth, specifically timing and union status, as well as union formation and dissolution following first birth using data from the 1997-2011 rounds of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97). Consistent with the physical maturation hypothesis, I found overweight and obese women experienced a first birth at younger ages compared to normal weight/underweight women. Overweight and obese women were more likely to experience a first birth than their thinner peers, but this association was weaker for minorities than for whites. Consistent with the stigma of obesity perspective, compared to normal weight/underweight women, the odds of a marital first birth were lower for obese women, but only when age a first birth was controlled. However, when economic resources were controlled, the association between obesity and union status at first birth was nonsignificant. Minority women were less likely to experience their first birth in a union, but this association somewhat varied by body weight. The odds of a marital rather than a cohabiting first birth were 68% lower for Black obese women than white normal weight/underweight women. Among women who were single at first birth, obese women had lower odds of forming a cohabiting union following a first birth than normal weight/underweight, but the association became nonsignificant once age at first birth was controlled. The association between BMI and union dissolution following first birth was nonsignificant. Taken as a whole, these findings highlight the disadvantages obese women face in family formation experiences and how race and ethnicity is an important factor to understanding such experiences.
I-Fen Lin (Advisor)
Kelly Balistreri (Committee Member)
Susan L. Brown (Committee Member)
Kara Joyner (Committee Member)
Dara R. Musher-Eizenman (Committee Member)
162 p.
Sociology
obesity; body weight; body mass index; BMI; nonmarital fertility; union formation; union dissolution; nonmarital childbearing; stigma of obesity; fertility; childbearing; union status at first birth; stigma

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Fee, H. (2019). Obesity and First Birth: Timing, Union Status, And Subsequent Union Formation And Dissolution [Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555642839487787

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Fee, Holly. Obesity and First Birth: Timing, Union Status, And Subsequent Union Formation And Dissolution. 2019. Bowling Green State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555642839487787.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Fee, Holly. "Obesity and First Birth: Timing, Union Status, And Subsequent Union Formation And Dissolution." Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555642839487787

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1555642839487787
217
© 2019, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Obesity and First Birth: Timing, Union Status, And Subsequent Union Formation And Dissolution by Holly Fee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.