Gender,marital status,and body weight in older U.S. adults

Marital terminations are life transitions that may lead to changes in diet, activity, and body weight. This investigation examined how marital status was associated with relative body weight, underweight, overweight, and obesity among men and women in the United States using cross-sectional nationally representative data from the 1992 HRS cohort age 51–61 and the 1993 AHEAD cohort age 70 and older. Results in the HRS cohort revealed that even when adjusting for demographic and behavioral variables, widowed women were significantly more likely to be obese than married women, while men who were never married, divorced, or separated were more likely to be underweight. Results in the AHEAD cohort showed few significant associations between marital status and weight for either men or women when demographics were controlled. Clear gender variations appeared to exist in how marriage is related to body weight among unmarried older adults, with widows in their 50s being obese and divorced/separated/never married men being underweight. However, marital status differences in weight were not present among much older adults of either gender. Jeffery Sobal is a asociologist who is an associate professor at the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. He has studied food systems, food choice, and is currently examining social aspects of body weight and obesity, particularly marriage and body weight. Barbara S. Rauschenbach is a sociologist who is a research associate in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. She has studied food insecurity and food assistance, and is currently examining marital status and body weight.     

Alternative Bases of Source Selection

Dans un article précédent nous avons présenté les résultats d'une expérience concue pour mettre à l'épreuve certaines prédictions d'une théorie formelle de la relation interpersonnelle en ce qui à trait a l'émergence des anticipations de conduite lorsque plusieurs sources d'évaluation de cette conduite anticipee sont disponibles a un individu, Dans cet article nous formulons deux alternatives additionnelles qui sont théoriquement plausibles, les multiples prédictions em-piriques qu'elles engendrent, et une évaluation de ces trois formulations particu-lières à la lumière des données existantes. De ces trois formulations, seule la première est appuyee par nos donnees empiriques. Voici de quelle manière elle s'exprime: mis en présence de plusieurs sources d'évaluation l'individu intègre l'ensemble des éléments de l'évaluation plutot que de (a) choisir seu-lement la meilleure source disponible, ou (b) d'utiliser la source la moins bonne comme une ?source négative?, ou encore de se servir de l'évaluation de celui dont l'exactitude ne peut etre mise en doute. In an earlier paper we reported the results of an experiment designed to test certain predictions of a formal theory of interpersonal behaviour concerning the formation of performance expectations when multiple sources of performance evaluation were available to an individual. In this paper we present two additional theoretically reasonable alternative formulations, the different empirical predictions derivable from them, and an evaluation of the three formulations in the light of the existing data. Of the three, only the original formulation received clear empirical support. This formulation holds that when faced with multiple sources of evaluation, the individual combines the evaluations received, rather than (a) selecting only the best source available, or (b) using the lower source as a “negative source,” or someone whose evaluation is so likely to be incorrect as to provide an accurate measure of the correct evaluation.     

Race,Sex, and Perception of the Occupational Opportunity Structure among College Students*

Questionnaires were administered to 70 black female, 75 black male, 1,457 white female and 1,429 white male university freshmen. In order to test three alternative theories regarding perceptions of discrimination, analyses of variance related sex, race, and SES to total scores of perceived occupational discrimination against blacks (BDST) and against women (WDST). Blacks perceived significantly more discrimination against black people than did whites; neither sex nor SES differentialed scores on BDST. Black females and white males perceived significantly more discrimination against women than did white females; black females had the highest and white females the lowest WDST scores. A discriminant analysis on white females indicated that high WDST scorers were characterized by an “underdog syndrome” whereas low WDST scorers held internal, individualistic values. The findings indicated the greatest support for the formulation that differential anticipatory socialization into the role of “a person who is discriminated against” characterized white females who perceived more or less discrimination against women.