The "Precious" Dilemma: An Investigation of Race, Childhood Sexual Abuse, and Adult Obesity

Identifier

404

Author

Armanthia Nicole Duncan

Date

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Sociology

Committee Member

Wesley James

Abstract

The critically acclaimed film Precious, depicts poverty, sexual abuse, illiteracy, and obesity. The emotional story of Precious inspires this research on childhood sexual trauma and its long-term effects. I intend to address these issues by investigating the relation between childhood sexual abuse and its relation to obesity using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the subcomponent Adverse Childhood Experience module. Using binary logistic regression models controlling for education, income, healthy lifestyle and health risk behaviors, the odds ratio for sexually abused black female respondents were higher than for sexually abused females of other races. Findings from this research suggest that race and childhood sexual abuse are strong predictors of adulthood obesity, providing an important contribution to the obesity literature.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

Recommended Citation

Duncan, Armanthia Nicole, "The "Precious" Dilemma: An Investigation of Race, Childhood Sexual Abuse, and Adult Obesity" (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 317.
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/etd/317