The slimmer college grad
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People from lower education levels tend to weigh more - in fact, to be obese. At Boston University School of Public Health, Patricia Coogan saw that in data on more than 21,000 African-American women who were followed from 1995 to 2009.
Coogan says women whose parents didn't graduate from high school were more likely to be obese. But she also reports:
"Women were able to overcome this adverse effect of low parental education by improving their own education to level of a college graduate."
Coogan says educated women might have more knowledge of, and money for, exercise and healthier foods.
The study in the journal Epidemiology and Disease was supported by the National Institutes of Health.