While many studies have examined factors associated with overweight and obesity among
college students, no study has yet compared gender differences influencing overweight and
obesity using a multilevel framework. The present study examines different influences on
overweight and obesity between men and women at both individual and environmental levels.
Participants were 11,673 college students identified through a multistage survey sampling
process conducted in 50 Chinese universities. The prevalence of overweight and obesity was
9.5% (95% CI [7.7, 11.3]) in the overall study sample, 13.9% (95% CI [11.5, 16.7]) in
males and 6.1% (95% CI [4.1, 8.1]) in females, respectively. We found that higher family
income, perceived life stress, home region GDP, and university city unemployment were
associated with higher overweight and obesity levels in males, independent of other
individual- and city-level covariates. However, unlike male students, only unemployment
was associated with overweight and obesity among females. Our research indicates Chinese
males are more susceptible to overweight and obesity, and are more easily influenced by
external variants than Chinese females. This information should be considered in
formulating gender-specific policies and designing and implementing effective
interventions to reduce the prevalence of overweight and obesity among young adult male
college students.