SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION - American Sociological Association

Gender, Obesity, and Education 253
Obesity and Psychosocial
Adjustment
The previous analyses revealed that girls who
were obese during adolescence were less likely
to enroll in college in young adulthood,
especially when they attended middle schools
and high schools in which obesity was relatively
uncommon. Because obese and
nonobese boys did not differ in terms of college
enrollment after high school no matter
where they attended middle school or high
school, the subsequent investigation of the
psychosocial mechanisms linking obesity to
college enrollment will focus only on girls. As
was described in the Plan of Analyses, testing
mediation first required that I establish that
obesity predicts the psychosocial outcomes.
Table 3 presents the odds ratios from logistic
regressions predicting two internalizing
symptoms—self-rejection and suicidal
ideation—among girls only. As may be seen
in the first column, obesity at Wave I was
associated with greater odds of self-rejection
at Wave II, net of the four sets of selection factors,
as well as the Wave I version of self-rejection.
4 Specifically, the odds of self-rejection
were 63 percent higher for obese girls than
for nonobese girls. Because of the control for
Wave I self-rejection, these odds capture
increases in the odds of self-rejection between
Wave I and Wave II that are associated with
obesity. As may be seen in the second column,
obesity was also associated with
increased odds of suicidal ideation among
girls. Additional modeling iterations included
interaction terms between adolescent obesity
and the two school-level obesity factors. No
interaction term significantly predicted either
of the two internalizing outcomes for girls.
The first panel in Table 4 presents the
exponentiated coefficients from Poisson models
predicting two types of self-medication—
alcohol and marijuana use—among girls.
Obesity was associated with higher expected
frequencies of both. After all selection factors,
as well as the Wave I versions of both substance
use variables, were controlled for,
these two obesity coefficients just narrowly
missed statistical significance at the .05 level.
Again, adding interaction terms between
obesity and the two school-level obesity fac-
tors revealed no significant across-school variations
in the associations between Wave I
obesity and either form of Wave II substance
use for girls.
Finally, the second panel in Table 4 presents
the exponentiated coefficients from Poisson
models predicting two types of academic disengagement—the
number of class failures and
truancy—among girls. Obesity at Wave I predicted
class failures at Wave II, net of the selection
factors and Wave I number of class failures.
More specifically, obese girls had 24 percent
higher expected frequencies of class failures
between Wave I and Wave II than did their
nonobese counterparts who had the same
number of class failures at Wave I. Additional
analyses revealed no significant interaction
between girls’ obesity and either school-level
obesity factor. Wave I obesity did not predict
girls’ truancy rates at Wave II in the full sample.
Yet, in the next modeling iteration (not shown),
the obesity measure did interact significantly (p
< .05), with the school-level factor indexing the
proportion of obese girls in the student body.
To interpret this interaction term, I again calculated
the predicted frequencies of truancy for
obese and nonobese girls in different types of
schools. Nonobese girls did not differ in their
rates of truancy across schools. On the other
hand, obese girls had low truancy rates if they
attended schools in which at least 10 percent of
the student body was other obese girls, but
they had the highest truancy rates of all girls
when they attended schools with no other
obese girls.
In sum, girls who were obese at Wave I
demonstrated significant or marginally significant
increases in self-rejection, suicidal ideation,
alcohol use, marijuana use, and class failure
between Wave I and Wave II. At the same time,
they demonstrated increases in truancy during
this period if they attended schools with a low
representation of obese girls in the student
body. The results provide support—among girls
at least—for Path A1 in Figure 1.
Obesity, Psychosocial Adjustment,
and College Enrollment
Having confirmed Path A1, I now attempt to
establish Path A2. Table 5 presents the partial
results of a logistic regression model predict-