Washington: A new study has found that obese teenage boys might end up earning up to 18 percent less at their jobs when they grow up.
Researchers from Lund University, Jonkoping University and Linneas University compared extensive information from Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, analyzing a large-scale data of 145,193 Swedish-born brothers who enlisted in the Swedish National Service for mandatory military service between 1984 and 1997.
It included information gathered by military enlistment personnel and certified psychologists about the soldiers' cognitive skills and their non-cognitive skills, which can affect their productivity. Tax records were then used to gauge the annual earnings of this group of men, who were between 28 and 39 years old in 2003. The Swedish results were further compared with data from the British National Child Development Study and the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979.
The study for the first time showed how men who were already overweight or obese as teenagers, can grow up to earn 18 percent less in adulthood.
A strikingly similar pattern also emerged when the researchers used the specific data sets from the United Kingdom and the United States. This confirmed that the wage penalty was unique to men who were already overweight or obese early in their lives.
The team ascribed the wage penalty partly to obese adolescents' often possessing lower levels of cognitive and non-cognitive skills. This was consistent with the evidence linking body size during childhood and adolescence with bullying, lower self-esteem and discrimination by peers and teachers.
The researchers advised that policies and programs target overweight and obesity problems, which were often more common among low-income households. This could reduce disparities in child and adolescent development and socio-economic inequalities. It could also cut persistent patterns of low income across generations.
The results are published in Springer's journal Demography.
