Ethnic Differences in the Influence of Peers on Weight-Related Behavior

There is no doubt that peers have an influence on individual weight gain. This paper seeks to find if the influence of peers is consistent across ethnic groups or whether certain groups are influenced more by their peers than other groups. Studies in the peer effects literature primarily focus on identifying the direct impact of peers on individual behavior. The difficulty in isolating the direct behavioral effect of peers on individual’s behavior is that there are several mechanisms driving the correlation between individual’s outcomes and peer group outcomes. We model peer effects using an identification strategy that exploits network structure and incorporates group-specific fixed effects to control for confounding effects. Using data taken from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), we find the existence of peer effects and these effects differ depending on ethnicity and gender. The findings show that peer effects exist across all genders and ethnic groups, but it is more prevalent among young males. The findings also show that having male peers lower exercise for both young males and young females. The implications of this study are that reducing obesity through encouraging healthy behaviors should not only focus on individual factors but use of peers as well as cultural, gender and ethnic differences should be considered in designing such programs