Racial Disparities in the Relationship Between Parental Incarceration and Childhood Obesity

Abstract

Despite a developing literature on the consequences of parental incarceration, its effects on childhood obesity are not evident. Our research project fills this knowledge gap by describing the relationship between parental incarceration and childhood obesity among children aged 3–15 and determining if and how this association differs across race. We use four consecutive waves of data on 3,302 children from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Our analysis finds little evidence that parental incarceration influences the probability of obesity among all children as a group. Moreover, our findings reveal critical racial disparities in the relationship between parental incarceration and childhood obesity. In particular, parental lifetime incarceration is not associated with risks of obesity for White or Hispanic children but is associated with a significantly decreased chance of obesity for Black children. This research effort can initiate an interdisciplinary conversation on the important intersection of family and corrections in order to alleviate the intergenerational erosion of physical health and well-being.