Obesity during childhood and adolescence is a growing problem in the United States,
Canada, and around the world that leads to significant physical, psychological, and social …

Integrative explanations of why obesity is more prevalent in some sectors of the human
population than others are lacking. Here, we outline and evaluate one candidate …

We study how health behaviors are shaped through family spillovers. We leverage
administrative data to identify the effects of health shocks on family members' consumption …

Risky health behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol, drug use, unprotected sex, and
poor diets and sedentary lifestyles (leading to obesity) are a major source of preventable …

Researchers and policymakers from diverse fields are engaged in efforts to understand the
biological and social causes of obesity in order to develop policies, interventions, and …

Purpose To investigate whether social interactions in friendship networks influence the
following weight-related behaviors of adolescents: exercising regularly, playing an active …

PURPOSE: To determine whether weight-based similarities among adolescent friends result
from social influence processes, after controlling for the role of weight on friendship selection …

This paper aims at opening the black box of peer effects in adolescent weight gain. Using
Add Health data on secondary schools in the US, we investigate whether these effects partly …

We study the effect of obesity on employment, using rich data from the British National Child
Development Study (NCDS). The results show a significant negative association between …

Despite the urgent public health implications, relatively little is yet known about the effect of
peers on adolescent weight gain. We describe trends and features of adolescent BMI in a …