Ethnic disparities in adolescent body mass index in the United States: The role of parental socioeconomic status and economic contextual factors

► Examined household and economic contextual factors as determinants of ethnic disparities in adolescent body mass index. ► Study used National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method. ► Demographic, parental SES and contextual factors explained the majority of the BMI gaps except the black-white female gap. ► Parental SES was more important in explaining the Hispanic-white BMI gap than the black-white BMI gap for both genders. ► Economic contextual factors were more important in explaining the male versus female ethnic BMI disparities.