Technical Abstract: Obesity is a public health problem. This study examined differences in socio-economic and lifestyle characteristics associated with obesity status in a longitudinal sample if 822 young adults (68% Euro-American (EA) and 32% African-American (AA); 36% male. Subjects were categorized into three adiposity categories that described BMI changes from childhood to young adulthood; normal-normal (N-N), overweight to overweight (O-O); and normal-overweight (N-O). Chi-square test was used to examine the distribution differences in socio-economic and lifestyle factors among the three adiposity categories. There were more EA in N-N category than AA (44% vs. 34%) (p<0.05), and more males than females in N-O category (47% vs. 30%) (p<0.05). More EA males were in N-O category (p<0.05) and EA females in N-N category (p<0.05) compared to other ethnicity-gender groups. More subjects in the O-O category had incomes <= $15K as compared to individuals with income > $45K (31% vs. 15%) (p<0.05). The mean age of N-O category was higher than the mean age of O-O category (28.6 years vs. 27.7 years) (p<0.05). More single individuals were in the O-O category (39% vs. 61%) (p<0.05). Increased physical activity outside of work was negatively associated with obesity (p<0.05). Additional studies are needed to better understand factors that affect weight change from childhood to adulthood.