@article{b91255d752194876928f8b8b64cb5707,
title = "The effect of friends on adolescent body weight",
abstract = "Using the first wave of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) survey, this paper examines the influence of peers on adolescent weight. A peer group is defined as a close circle of friends that are identified by a respondent adolescent. After controlling for school fixed effects and for a number of individual, demographic and family characteristics, we find that a higher Body Mass Index (BMI) of close friends is correlated to a higher BMI of the respondent adolescent. However, after instrumental variable analysis is performed, the effect remains significant only among women. We also found that adolescents are more responsive to the body weight of their same gender friends.",
keywords = "Adolescents, BMI, Peer pressure",
author = "Francesco Renna and Grafova, {Irina B.} and Nidhi Thakur",
note = "Funding Information: This research uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by a grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 ( addhealth@unc.edu ). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis. The authors would like to thank Jeannette Rogowski and participants to the 6th iHEA World Conference for their valuable feedback on an earlier version of this paper. All remaining errors are ours. ",
year = "2008",
month = dec,
doi = "10.1016/j.ehb.2008.06.005",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "6",
pages = "377--387",
journal = "Economics and Human Biology",
issn = "1570-677X",
publisher = "Elsevier",
number = "3",
}