Racial Discrimination, BMI, and Perceived Body Weight among Black Americans

• In Event: 082 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session I
  In Refereed Roundtable: A. Table 25. Race and Health

Abstract

Racial discrimination is an explanation gaining popular acceptance for the racial/ethnic variation in health disadvantage. However, there is a dearth of research examining the relationship between racial discrimination and BMI and body weight perception among Black Americans. However, obesity is a condition that disproportionately affects African Americans at a rate 1.5 time that of non-Hispanic whites. This paper seeks to address the gap in this area by examining the experiences of racial discrimination on both BMI and body weight perception using data from a nationally representative sample of Black Americans. We begin by outlining a series of theoretical arguments linking discrimination, BMI and body weight perception. We then test a series of OLS and multinomial logistic regression models. We conclude with a discussion of the findings, note study limitations, and outline promising directions of future research.

Authors

• Andrea Henderson, University of Texas-Austin

• Juanita J. Chinn, Princeton University