TY - JOUR
T1 - First-year college students' weight change is influenced by their randomly assigned roommates' BMI
AU - Van Woerden, Irene
AU - Hruschka, Daniel
AU - Brewis, Alexandra
AU - Schaefer, David R.
AU - Bruening, Meg
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 van Woerden et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2020/11
Y1 - 2020/11
N2 - Background There is ongoing debate about whether friends' greater similarity in Body Mass Index (BMI) than non-friends is due to friend selection, shared environments, or peer influence. Methods First-year college students (n = 104) from a southwestern U.S. university were randomly assigned roommates during the university's housing process, effectively removing friend selection effects. Participant BMI was measured up to four times (T1-T4) across 2015- 2016. The influence of roommate baseline BMI (T1) on change in participant BMI over time (T2-T4) was analyzed using a linear mixed effects model adjusted for individual socio-demographics, linear time trends, baseline BMI, and physical clustering of students. A sensitivity analysis examining floormates was also conducted. Results Consistent with roommate influence, participants randomized to roommates with a higher BMI gained more weight between times T2 and T4 (β = 0.06; 95% CI = 0.02, 0.10). No shared environment effects (shared campus or floor) were found. Conclusions Randomly assigned roommates influenced each other's weight trajectories. This clarifies that BMI convergence can occur outside of friend selection or shared environments mechanisms.
AB - Background There is ongoing debate about whether friends' greater similarity in Body Mass Index (BMI) than non-friends is due to friend selection, shared environments, or peer influence. Methods First-year college students (n = 104) from a southwestern U.S. university were randomly assigned roommates during the university's housing process, effectively removing friend selection effects. Participant BMI was measured up to four times (T1-T4) across 2015- 2016. The influence of roommate baseline BMI (T1) on change in participant BMI over time (T2-T4) was analyzed using a linear mixed effects model adjusted for individual socio-demographics, linear time trends, baseline BMI, and physical clustering of students. A sensitivity analysis examining floormates was also conducted. Results Consistent with roommate influence, participants randomized to roommates with a higher BMI gained more weight between times T2 and T4 (β = 0.06; 95% CI = 0.02, 0.10). No shared environment effects (shared campus or floor) were found. Conclusions Randomly assigned roommates influenced each other's weight trajectories. This clarifies that BMI convergence can occur outside of friend selection or shared environments mechanisms.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0242681
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0242681
M3 - Article
C2 - 33232356
AN - SCOPUS:85096816660
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 15
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 11 November
M1 - e0242681
ER -