Social Relationships and Health Behavior Across the Life Course

“Social support may also operate indirectly through enhanced personal control (Berkman et al. 2000), as shown in studies of smoking cessation (Gulliver et al. 1995).”

“For example, Courtenay (2000) argues that cultural images of masculinity make men more likely than women to respond to stress with heavy drinking and other risky behaviors.”

“This may be beneficial for health habits because adolescents and adults often engage in unhealthy behaviors such as smoking and drinking as a way of self-medicating to reduce tension and anxiety (Baker et al. 2004, Kassel et al. 2003, Thoits 1995).”

“A central image of this perspective is of developmental trajectories (e.g., health) and social convoys (e.g., relationships) intertwining over long periods to make up the individual life course (Elder et al. 2003).”

“Thus, relationships can mean different things for health depending on the stage of life considered, and their effects can filter across stages even as the relationships themselves change or fade (Repetti et al. 2002).”

“Over the past three decades, many studies have provided evidence that social ties influence health behavior across the life course (Berkman & Breslow 1983, Resnick et al. 1997).”

“Stress increases allostatic load, and, in turn, the “weathering” of systems diminishes health (Geronimus et al. 2006, McEwen & Stellar 1993).”

“N IH -PA Author M anuscript N IH -PA Author M anuscript N IH -PA Author M anuscript sharing of potentially unhealthy habits such as overeating or heavy drinking (Berg & Seeman 1994, Uchino 2006).”

“A great deal of evidence points to the link between marital stress and poor health (Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton 2001), and health behavior is a likely mediator of this link.”

“N IH -PA Author M anuscript N IH -PA Author M anuscript N IH -PA Author M anuscript (Stattin & Kerr 2000).”

“For example, fit body norms may motivate adults to stay trim (Ross & Wu 1995), and the symbolic meanings of sociability and celebration attached to alcohol consumption make it difficult to avoid drinking even for those who wish to do so (PatonSimpson 2001).”

“Stress refers to life disruptions (e.g., discrete events such as divorce) and chronic strains (e.g., ongoing conflict in relationships) that challenge individuals’ coping capacities (Pearlin et al. 2005).”

“Umberson (1992) finds that the most likely agent of social control changes over adulthood, from parent to partner to adult child.”

“The importance of health behavior for overall health is undisputed, as health behavior explains almost half of the deaths in the United States annually (McGinnis et al. 2002).”

“Waite & Gallagher (2000) argue that cohabitation does not benefit health habits as much as marriage, in part because it lacks the symbolic meanings of marriage.”

“Similarly, in midlife, the stress of providing care for elderly parents interferes with caregivers’ ability to maintain healthy habits, resulting in more sedentary behavior, alcohol consumption, and smoking (Pinquart & Sorensen 2007, Vitaliano et al. 2003).”

“This may be beneficial for health habits because adolescents and adults often engage in unhealthy behaviors such as smoking and drinking as a way of self-medicating to reduce tension and anxiety (Baker et al. 2004, Kassel et al. 2003, Thoits 1995).”

“Across disciplines, health behavior occupies a pivotal position in theoretical models that seek to explain when and how social ties affect health (e.g., House et al. 1988, Repetti et al. 2002, Uchino 2004).”

“Although the basic assumption of this research is that social ties promote healthy behavior and deter risky behavior, ample evidence shows that social ties can also lead to risky health behavior (Christakis & Fowler 2007, Taylor & Repetti 1997).”

“Importantly, many studies document that stress, in turn, contributes to poor health habits in childhood, adolescence (Kassel et al. 2003, Stunkard et al. 2003), and adulthood (Kassel et al. 2003, Umberson et al. 2008).”

“Social isolation, the relative absence of social integration, may be a particularly important predictor of adverse health outcomes (Bearman & Moody 2004, Brummett et al. 2001, Seeman et al. 2002).”

“Recent research also suggests that marital status differences in health may result more from the stress associated with marital dissolution than from the absence of a partner, per se (Williams & Umberson 2004).”

“Religious attendance may affect behavior because it exposes people to messages about proper behavior and reinforces these messages through informal networks (Strawbridge et al. 2001).”

“Indeed, once the effects of adolescent disclosure are controlled, parents’ attempts to supervise adolescents are associated with adolescents’ avoidance of problem behavior (Fletcher et al. 2004, Soenens et al. 2006).”

“…well as stress that contributes to psychological distress, which, in turn, is associated with increased physiological arousal (e.g., heart rate, stress hormones) that elicits behavioral coping responses and with greater propensities for unhealthy behavior in general (Kiecolt-Glaser & Glaser 2002).”

“For example, parents’ monitoring of their adolescents’ activities (e.g., keeping tabs on where they go) is associated with reduced risky behavior (Barnes et al. 2000, Borawski et al. 2003).”

“For example, individuals who are low on conscientiousness (“prudent, planful, persistent, dependable,” Friedman 2000, p. 1099) or high on hostility engage in more risky health behavior (Smith & Gallo 2001, Williams 2001).”

“Indeed, the positions of young people in their social networks and the norms and values of their friends and romantic partners are strong predictors of whether they engage in healthy or unhealthy behaviors (Bearman & Bruckner 2001, Gaughan 2006).”

“Closeness with parents is a consistent predictor of healthy behavior among adolescents (Ackard et al. 2006, Resnick et al. 1997).”

“Life course work on stress, allostatic load, and the aging process explains how social factors coalesce to produce cumulative health advantages or disadvantages throughout life (Berkman et al. 2000, Seeman et al. 2002).”

“For example, parents’ monitoring of their adolescents’ activities (e.g., keeping tabs on where they go) is associated with reduced risky behavior (Barnes et al. 2000, Borawski et al. 2003).”

“Social Conditions Race and gender also shape exposure to social constraints and opportunities throughout life in ways that influence social ties, health habits, and the psychosocial mechanisms that link the two, and they need to be studied more explicitly (Williams 2002, 2003).”

“Allostatic load refers to “a cumulative measure of physiologic dysregulation across multiple systems” (e.g., increased blood pressure), proposed to have “considerable impact on future health risks” (Karlamangla et al. 2002, p. 696).”

“Indeed, once the effects of adolescent disclosure are controlled, parents’ attempts to supervise adolescents are associated with adolescents’ avoidance of problem behavior (Fletcher et al. 2004, Soenens et al. 2006).”

“The mechanisms by which social ties influence health behavior then multiply at the same time that social ties increase in number (Crockett & Petersen 1993, Ennett et al. 2006).”

“Furthermore, individuals can recover from health problems and experience improved health at any age (Taylor et al. 2002).”

“Despite these benefits, social support can also contribute to unhealthy behavior (Eyler et al. 2003).”

“Social isolation, the relative absence of social integration, may be a particularly important predictor of adverse health outcomes (Bearman & Moody 2004, Brummett et al. 2001, Seeman et al. 2002).”

“Yet, again, the effects of parenthood are not unequivocally positive because parents tend to exercise less and weigh more than nonparents (Bellows-Riecken & Rhodes 2008, Nomaguchi & Bianchi 2004).”

“Over the past three decades, many studies have provided evidence that social ties influence health behavior across the life course (Berkman & Breslow 1983, Resnick et al. 1997).”

“This may be beneficial for health habits because adolescents and adults often engage in unhealthy behaviors such as smoking and drinking as a way of self-medicating to reduce tension and anxiety (Baker et al. 2004, Kassel et al. 2003, Thoits 1995).”

“Yet parental monitoring and related discipline may backfire, leading to an escalation of risky health behaviors (Chuang et al. 2005, Ennett et al. 2001).”

“…sophisticated techniques for dealing with unobserved confounds, such as fixed-effects modeling, propensity scores, robustness indices, and instrumental variables, should be used more extensively in the future for dealing with endogeneity of social tie effects (Lundborg 2006, McCaffrey et al. 2008).”

“Family relationships often center around shared meals, which can symbolize family connections, a shared culture, and even love (Sobal & Nelson 2003).”

“Yet, again, the effects of parenthood are not unequivocally positive because parents tend to exercise less and weigh more than nonparents (Bellows-Riecken & Rhodes 2008, Nomaguchi & Bianchi 2004).”

“Schnittker & McLeod (2005) argue that racial/ethnic identity may be linked to the meanings of food and alcohol consumption in ways that influence engagement in these practices.”

“Mounting evidence points to the “long arm of childhood,” in that early life course experiences launch social and health trajectories into motion and have health effects lasting into adulthood (Haas 2008, Palloni 2006).”

“Parental death or divorce has a broad range of effects on children, including change in health risk behaviors (Biblarz & Gottainer 2000, Cherlin 2009).”

“For example, low neuroticism and high extraversion are positively associated with quantity and quality of social ties (Smith & Gallo 2001), and conscientious individuals have more stable relationships over time (Friedman et al. 1995).”

“…being made toward addressing these problems, primarily through the increased availability of longitudinal data that allow for tests of bidirectionality among constructs and the application of more rigorous tests of omitted variable bias (Jaccard et al. 2005, Jeffery & Rick 2002, Sobal et al. 2003).”

“Following past research (Gorman & Read 2006, Uchino 2004), we made mental health a central component of our conceptual model.”

“This pattern with adults may parallel how parental efforts to control adolescent behavior can back-fire (Marshal & Chassin 2000).”

“Yet parental monitoring and related discipline may backfire, leading to an escalation of risky health behaviors (Chuang et al. 2005, Ennett et al. 2001).”

“Adults who divorce increase their alcohol consumption, smoke more, and experience significant weight loss (Eng et al. 2005, Waite & Gallagher 2000).”

“Bilateral attempts between spouses to control health behavior may have more positive effects (Lewis & Butterfield 2007).”

“Lower mortality rates among the married are often attributed, in part, to better health habits (Rogers 1995, Waite & Gallagher 2000).”

“Social support may also operate indirectly through enhanced personal control (Berkman et al. 2000), as shown in studies of smoking cessation (Gulliver et al. 1995).”

“N IH -PA Author M anuscript N IH -PA Author M anuscript N IH -PA Author M anuscript sharing of potentially unhealthy habits such as overeating or heavy drinking (Berg & Seeman 1994, Uchino 2006).”

“For example, parents shape diet and exercise habits that contribute to childhood obesity, which, in turn, is associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease and premature mortality in adulthood (Ferraro et al. 2003).”

“Control from network members has been associated with fewer unhealthy behaviors and more healthy behaviors (Berkman et al. 2000, Tucker 2002).”

“Given this evidence, theorists have begun to conceptualize social control as a communal and multidirectional process between members of social groups rather than a one-way process (Lewis et al. 2004).”

“Yet the transition into marriage or cohabitation increases obesity risk (The & Gordon-Larsen 2009).”

“The transition to parenthood and living with young children are also associated with lower rates of adult substance use (Chilcoat & Breslau 1996).”

“…sophisticated techniques for dealing with unobserved confounds, such as fixed-effects modeling, propensity scores, robustness indices, and instrumental variables, should be used more extensively in the future for dealing with endogeneity of social tie effects (Lundborg 2006, McCaffrey et al. 2008).”

“Widowhood is associated with substantial weight loss (Eng et al. 2005, Umberson et al. 2009), more smoking, and a more sedentary lifestyle (Wilcox et al. 2003).”

“Positive tactics (e.g., helping, rewarding) are more effective than negative ones (e.g., reprimanding, demanding) (Fekete et al. 2008, Lewis & Butterfield 2005).”

“For example, in many schools, drinking is associated with popularity (Crosnoe 2006, Crosnoe et al. 2004).”

“Although Figure 1 emphasizes that stress undermines health habits, some habits—for example, heavy drinking and significant weight gain—also stress social ties (Carr & Friedman 2006, Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton 2001).”

“For example, a three-generational study of families found that substance use is transmitted across generations in part because it leads to problematic parenting behaviors that then disrupt the development of inhibitory control in young people (Pears et al. 2007).”

“N IH -PA Author M anuscript N IH -PA Author M anuscript N IH -PA Author M anuscript (Cohen et al. 1991, Horwitz & White 1991).”

“Indeed, the positions of young people in their social networks and the norms and values of their friends and romantic partners are strong predictors of whether they engage in healthy or unhealthy behaviors (Bearman & Bruckner 2001, Gaughan 2006).”

“Social risks on the school level can also amplify negative influences and blunt positive influences in the friendship group (Cleveland & Wiebe 2003, Crosnoe et al. 2004).”

“For example, cigarette use—often viewed as a stress relief tool—is more common among teenagers experiencing social stress, such as those experiencing problems with parents or at school (Johnson & Hoffman 2000, Kirby 2001).”

“For example, in many schools, drinking is associated with popularity (Crosnoe 2006, Crosnoe et al. 2004).”

“For example, parents influence adolescent health behavior in part because close ties to parents act as a buffer against negative peer influences and stress (Meadows 2007).”

“For example, stress may contribute to psychological distress and physiological arousal (e.g., increased heart rate) (Kassel et al. 2003), and individuals may use certain behaviors (e.g., drinking, overeating) to cope with stress and reduce unpleasant arousal (Ensel & Lin 2004, Kassel et al. 2003).”

“…between athletic participation, one of the strongest pathways to popularity in American schools, and both healthy behavior (e.g., exercise) and status-related unhealthy behavior (e.g., drinking) reveal the health trade-offs of peer dynamics (Hoffman 2006, Miller et al. 2003, Peck et al. 2008).”

“N IH -PA Author M anuscript N IH -PA Author M anuscript N IH -PA Author M anuscript associated with increased health-compromising behaviors (Helgeson et al. 2004, Tucker et al. 2006).”

“…between athletic participation, one of the strongest pathways to popularity in American schools, and both healthy behavior (e.g., exercise) and status-related unhealthy behavior (e.g., drinking) reveal the health trade-offs of peer dynamics (Hoffman 2006, Miller et al. 2003, Peck et al. 2008).”

“At the same time, however, the married weigh more and exercise less than the unmarried (Grzywacz & Marks 1999, Jeffery & Rick 2002, Umberson 1992).”

“Social Conditions Race and gender also shape exposure to social constraints and opportunities throughout life in ways that influence social ties, health habits, and the psychosocial mechanisms that link the two, and they need to be studied more explicitly (Williams 2002, 2003).”

“Of particular importance are the experiences of aging adults, who receive less social control as they age (Tucker et al. 2004).”

“Parent and peer influences both contradict and reinforce each other, although peers tend to have stronger influence on more immediate behavioral decisions (e.g., whether to drink at a party) (Knoester et al. 2006, Marshal & Chassin 2000, Steinberg & Morris 2000).”

“…propensity for nicotine addiction and obesity, and these genetic propensities may interact with exposure to social factors (e.g., marriage, parenting) in ways that trigger or accelerate these propensities at any point in the life course and especially in critical periods (Hernandez & Blazer 2006).”

“Positive tactics (e.g., helping, rewarding) are more effective than negative ones (e.g., reprimanding, demanding) (Fekete et al. 2008, Lewis & Butterfield 2005).”

“Social ties influence health behavior, in part, because they influence, or “control,” our health habits (Umberson et al. 2010).”