How weight influences the rest of your life

Obesity rates have been rising over the last decade. It has already been established that Body Mass Index (BMI) is negatively related to work productivity and physical health. This paper aims to explore the effect of BMI on life attainment. In this study, life attainment is split into educational attainment and career attainment. Further, it examines whether the effect of BMI on life attainment is mediated through mental health, as established literature states that higher BMIs are closely related to depressive symptoms. To test the relationship between BMI, mental health and life attainment and to obtain more knowledge about the direction of effects, insights from genetic studies and the instrumental variable analysis are used to eliminate reverse causality and omitted-variable bias. Utilizing the longitudinal data and polygenic scores from the Health and Retirement Study, a negative causal effect of BMI on mental health and, in turn, a positive causal effect on educational attainment is found for the elderly, female American demographic.