(N ϭ 93,374). The hazard ratio for attaining high education was estimated with proportional hazard regression analysis controlling for intelligence, height, parental socioeconomic position, country of birth, conscription center, and municipality. Results: Young men who were obese (BMI Ն 30) at age 18 years (N ϭ 10,782) had a much lower chance of attaining a high education than normal-weight subjects [(18.5 Յ BMI Ͻ 25); adjusted hazard ratio 0.48 (95% confidence interval, 0.45, 0.52)]. Young men who were obese at age 18 had lower mean ninth grade school marks than young men with normal weight at any given intelligence level. Discussion: Obese men in Sweden are doing much worse in the educational system than their normal-weight counterparts even after adjustments for intelligence and parental socioeconomic position. Discrimination in the educational system and other sectors of the society may explain these strong associations.

Obese men in Sweden are at higher risk of receiving disability pension. The relationship between BMI and disability pension is J-shaped. An important future task is to estimate the societal costs due to disability pension of obese people.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to examine the relationships between genetic susceptibility to obesity, physical activity (PA), dietary fibre, sugar and fat intakes and 4-year changes in body mass index (BMI) and attained waist circumference (WC) in a cohort of 287 monozygotic and 189 dizygotic young adult male twin pairs. Increased knowledge about interactions between genes and environment may provide insight into why some individuals are more prone to obesity than others. Design: Information about PA, BMI, dietary habits, WC and potential confounders was collected by questionnaire in 1998 and 2002. The cohort data were analysed by mixed linear models. Results: Twins with low PA attained larger WC than twins with high PA (difference 2.5 cm; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.3, 3.6). The twins with the lowest fibre intake were found to have attained the highest WC and to have increased most in BMI (difference between highest and lowest fibre intakes: 1.6 cm, 95% CI 0.4, 2.9 and 0.45 kg m 22 , 95% CI 0.15, 0.76, respectively). Furthermore, our results suggested the presence of interactions so that twins with genetic susceptibility to obesity were more prone to have larger WC if sedentary than twins without genetic susceptibility. Conclusion: PA and a diet rich in fibre may be protective against weight gain among younger adult men. An interaction between PA, genes and attained WC is a novel finding which needs confirmation by other studies.

This large, population-based study showed that Swedish 10-year-old children hold stereotypical attitudes and are prejudiced against not only peers with obesity but also those with thin body sizes. Interestingly, no association was found between own body weight and prejudice against various body sizes.

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Objective: Several studies have shown an inverse relationship between obesity and social status. The aim of this longitudinal study was to disentangle the relationship between BMI and social mobility between generations. Methods and Procedures: The study population consisted of 752,081 men, born between 1951 and 1965, who were Swedish citizens at conscription examinations. Intellectual capacity and BMI (kg/m 2 ) were measured at age 18 years. Childhood socioeconomic index (SEI) was measured at an approximate age of 10 years and adult SEI at age 30 years. The odds ratios of moving up, down, or being socially stable were estimated with polytomous logistic regression. Multivariate analyses controlled for childhood SEI, intellectual capacity, education, birth-year, and municipality. Results: Men who were obese at age 18 years had a fully adjusted odds ratio of 0.72 (0.67; 0.77) of being upwardly mobile and an odds ratio of 1.32 (1.22; 1.43) of being downwardly mobile compared to normal weight men. Discussion: Obese men in Sweden were more often downwardly mobile in the social hierarchy and less often upwardly mobile than normal weight men. BMI seems to be a determinant of the social mobility in Swedish men possibly indicating that societal factors influence the social mobility of obese men.

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BackgroundIn a longitudinal population-based study of the relationship between body mass index (BMI) in early adulthood and marital status at 40 years of age, obese men were half as likely to be married compared with men of normal weight. Significant associations between obesity and marital status among men in a longitudinal setting are novel findings.MethodsThe study cohort comprised Swedish men born from 1951 to 1961. Height and weight at age 18 was gathered from the Military Service Conscription Register and information on marital status at 40 years of age was obtained from population registers by record-linkage using the unique personal identification number. The odds ratio (OR) for being married was calculated by polytomous logistic regression analysis adjusting for birth year, intellectual performance, education, country of birth, residential area, socioeconomic position in childhood and adulthood, parental education and muscle strength.ResultsOur study included 486 599 Swedish men. Young men who were obese (BMI≥30.0) at 18 years of age had an OR of 0.49 (95% CI: 0.46–0.52) for being married at 40 years of age compared to normal weight men (BMI: 18.5–24.9). Underweight men (BMI≤18.5) had an OR of 0.84 (0.82–0.86) and overweight men (BMI: 25.0–29.9) had an OR of 0.83 (0.80–0.85) for being married at 40 years of age.ConclusionUnderweight, overweight and obese men were less likely to be married than their normal weight counterparts. Obese men had the lowest likelihood of being married. Stigmatization and discrimination may partly explain these findings, but further research is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.