oa Intergenerationele overdracht van risicogedrag - Rookgedrag, alcoholgebruik en ongezonde eetgewoonten van ouders en hun volwassen kinderen

Intergenerational transmission of risk behaviour: the association between smoking, alcohol use, and unhealthy eating habits of parents and their adult children.

Employing information on more than 1200 individuals from the Family Survey Dutch Population 2000, we study to what extent risk behaviour (smoking, alcohol use, and unhealthy eating habits) is transmitted intergenerationally from parents to their adult children. Moreover, by building on theoretical notions on the socialization of risk behavior, we derive expectations on differential effects of parental risk behaviour for daughters and sons, and for low and high educated children. Our results show that risk behaviour of parents indeed has a stimulating effect on the smoking, drinking, and eating habits of their offspring. The transmission of abstinence and excessive alcohol use of mothers is stronger for daughters, whereas the transmission of excessive alcohol use of fathers is stronger for sons. Furthermore, higher educated children are less likely to be a smoker when they have a moderately smoking mother, and alcohol abstinence of the father leads to a lower risk of excessive alcohol use among higher educated children.