5. Discussion
The importance of healthy behaviors for overall health throughout the life course is well-established: healthy behaviors inhibit the onset of cardiovascular disease, some
cancers, and Type-II diabetes, which are leading causes of death and disability among US adults. I contribute to this research by using a life course perspective to examine the relationships between psychosocial, social support, and family of origin characteristics and healthy behavior
trajectories between adolescence and adulthood. I find that as adolescents transition to young adulthood, they engage in significantly fewer healthy behaviors. However, adolescents are not equally vulnerable to low healthy behaviors during young adulthood. Resources during
adolescence, including psychosocial characteristics, social support from peers, parents, and schools, and family of origin characteristics are protective of adolescents’ healthy behaviors, and these protective effects persist through young adulthood. Given that healthy behavior engagement is not constant over time, it is important to continue to refine existing theoretical models to reflect the need to examine how the social environment alters healthy behaviors across life course stages, as well as how resources early in the life course continue to protect or
inhibit healthy behaviors over time.