Explaining the widening distribution of Body Mass Index: A decomposition analysis of trends for England, 2002–2004 and 2012–2014

The aim of our study is to examine whether the widening of the distribution of body mass index (BMI) for England can be explained by compositional changes within the population or contextual changes in the relationships between explanatory variables and BMI. Race, socio‐economic status, and physical activity were important factors in explaining trends at the 90th centile of BMI, with contextual changes more influential than compositional...