Objective:

To estimate to what extent the parental transition to obesity affects the likelihood that normal-weight teenagers also transition to obesity. We depart from the hypothesis that the transition to obesity specifically among parents is the main factor affecting the development of obesity during adolescence.

Materials and methods:

Using two rounds of the longitudinal Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) and logistic regressions, we investigated how family weight-related characteristics affected the likelihood of teenagers 13 to 18 years of age in 2002 of becoming affected by obesity after seven to ten years.

Results:

The results confirm that if any of the parents were affected by obesity during the teenage period, the adolescent is more likely to become affected by obesity.

Conclusions:

Results confirm that, different from childhood obesity, the transition of parents to obesity during the adolescence of teenagers is the most important family factor affecting such transition.

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