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Food prices and body fatness among youths

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  • Grossman, Michael
  • Tekin, Erdal
  • Wada, Roy

Abstract

We examine the effect of food prices on clinical measures of obesity, including body mass index (BMI) and percentage body fat (PBF) measures derived from bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) and dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), among youths ages 12 through 18 in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. This is the first study to consider clinically measured levels of body composition rather than BMI to investigate the effects of food prices on obesity outcomes among youths classified by gender and race/ethnicity. Our findings suggest that increases in the real price per calorie of food for home consumption and the real price of fast-food restaurant food lead to improvements in obesity outcomes among youths. We also find that a rise in the real price of fruits and vegetables leads to increased obesity. Finally, our results indicate that measures of PBF derived from BIA and DXA are no less sensitive and in some cases more sensitive to the prices just mentioned than BMI, and serve an important role in demonstrating that rising food prices (except fruit and vegetable prices) are indeed associated with reductions in obesity rather than with reductions in body size proportions alone.

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  • Grossman, Michael & Tekin, Erdal & Wada, Roy, 2014. "Food prices and body fatness among youths," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 4-19.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:12:y:2014:i:c:p:4-19
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2013.10.003
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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. #HEJC papers for August 2013
      by academichealtheconomists in The Academic Health Economists' Blog on 2013-08-01 04:00:48

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    Cited by:

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    2. Wada, Roy & Han, Euna & Powell, Lisa M., 2015. "Associations between soda prices and intake: Evidence from 24-h dietary recall data," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 54-60.
    3. Dragone, D. & Ziebarth, N.R., 2015. "Non-Separable Time Preferences and Novelty Consumption: Theory and Evidence from the East German Transition to Capitalism," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 15/28, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    4. Buttet, Sebastien & Dolar, Veronika, 2015. "The Price Of One Sweet Calorie," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 3(4), pages 1-14, October.
    5. Buttet, Sebastien & Dolar, Veronika, 2015. "Toward a quantitative theory of food consumption choices and body weight," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 143-156.
    6. Stephen Popick & Anthony M. Yezer, 2015. "Amenity, Diversity and Obesity: Unobserved Heretogeneity in Cities," Working Papers 2015-12, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    7. Rafael Moreira Claro & Vargas Hernandez & Joel Alberto & Satoru Shimokawa & Euna Han & Sharada Keats & Steve Wiggins, 2015. "The Rising Cost of a Healthy Diet – Changing Relative prices of Foods in High- Income and Emerging Economies," Working Papers id:7250, eSocialSciences.
    8. Anthony M Yezer & Stephen J Popick, 2017. "Climate Preferences, Obesity, and Unobserved Heterogeneity in Cities," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 47(3), pages 309-329, Fall.
    9. Dragone, Davide & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2015. "Economic Development, Novelty Consumption, and Body Weight: Evidence from the East German Transition to Capitalism," IZA Discussion Papers 8967, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Brown, Christian & Routon, P. Wesley, 2018. "On the distributional and evolutionary nature of the obesity wage penalty," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 160-172.
    11. Xin Xu & Jayachandran N Variyam & Zhenxiang Zhao & Frank J Chaloupka, 2014. "Relative Food Prices and Obesity in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: 1976-2001," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(12), pages 1-22, December.
    12. Dragone, Davide & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2017. "Non-separable time preferences, novelty consumption and body weight: Theory and evidence from the East German transition to capitalism," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 41-65.
    13. Powell, Lisa M. & Jones, Kelly & Duran, Ana Clara & Tarlov, Elizabeth & Zenk, Shannon N., 2019. "The price of ultra-processed foods and beverages and adult body weight: Evidence from U.S. veterans," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 39-48.
    14. Vasilii Erokhin & Li Diao & Tianming Gao & Jean-Vasile Andrei & Anna Ivolga & Yuhang Zong, 2021. "The Supply of Calories, Proteins, and Fats in Low-Income Countries: A Four-Decade Retrospective Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-30, July.
    15. Lisa M. Powell & Roy Wada & Tamkeen Khan & Sherry L. Emery, 2017. "Food and beverage television advertising exposure and youth consumption, body mass index and adiposity outcomes," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(2), pages 345-364, May.
    16. Loureiro, Maria L. & Rahmani, Djamel, 2016. "The incidence of calorie labeling on fast food choices: A comparison between stated preferences and actual choices," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 82-93.
    17. Xiangjun Wu & Juan Xu, 2021. "Drivers of food price in China: A heterogeneous panel SVAR approach," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 52(1), pages 67-79, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Body mass index (BMI); Body composition; Percentage body fat (PBF); Youth obesity; Food prices;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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