IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ehbiol/v7y2009i1p55-63.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Overweight in adolescents: Implications for health expenditures

Author

Listed:
  • Monheit, Alan C.
  • Vistnes, Jessica P.
  • Rogowski, Jeannette A.

Abstract

We consider a compelling research question raised by the growing prevalence of overweight among adolescents: do overweight adolescents incur greater health care expenditures than adolescents of normal weight? To address this question, we use data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and estimate a two-part, generalized linear model (GLM) of health spending. Considering separate models by gender, we find that overweight females incur $790 more in annual expenditures than those of normal weight but we find no expenditure differences by bodyweight for males. We find that mental health spending is associated with part of the disparity in expenditures for adolescent females but establishing causality between mental health problems and weight-related health expenditure differences is challenging.

Suggested Citation

  • Monheit, Alan C. & Vistnes, Jessica P. & Rogowski, Jeannette A., 2009. "Overweight in adolescents: Implications for health expenditures," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 55-63, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:7:y:2009:i:1:p:55-63
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570-677X(08)00059-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ted O'Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2001. "Risky Behavior among Youths: Some Issues from Behavioral Economics," NBER Chapters, in: Risky Behavior among Youths: An Economic Analysis, pages 29-68, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Eric Johnson & Melayne Morgan McInnes & Judith A. Shinogle, 2006. "What is the Economic Cost of Overweight Children?," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 171-187, Winter.
    3. Burkhauser, Richard V. & Cawley, John, 2008. "Beyond BMI: The value of more accurate measures of fatness and obesity in social science research," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 519-529, March.
    4. Finkelstein, E.A. & Trogdon, J.G., 2008. "Public health interventions for addressing childhood overweight: Analysis of the business case," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(3), pages 411-415.
    5. Jay Bhattacharya & Janet Currie, 2001. "Youths at Nutrition Risk: Malnourished or Misnourished?," NBER Chapters, in: Risky Behavior among Youths: An Economic Analysis, pages 483-522, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Manning, Willard G. & Mullahy, John, 2001. "Estimating log models: to transform or not to transform?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 461-494, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joanne Castonguay, 2012. "Revue de littérature sur les études économiques des interventions auprès des enfants obèses," CIRANO Project Reports 2012rp-15, CIRANO.
    2. Apouey, Bénédicte H. & Geoffard, Pierre-Yves, 2016. "Parents’ education and child body weight in France: The trajectory of the gradient in the early years," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 70-89.
    3. Burkhauser, Richard V. & Cawley, John & Schmeiser, Maximilian D., 2009. "The timing of the rise in U.S. obesity varies with measure of fatness," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 307-318, December.
    4. Kinge, Jonas Minet & Morris, Stephan, 2015. "The impact of childhood obesity on health and health service use: an instrumental variable approach," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2015:2, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
    5. Christina Wenig, 2012. "The impact of BMI on direct costs in Children and Adolescents: empirical findings for the German Healthcare System based on the KiGGS-study," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 13(1), pages 39-50, February.
    6. Lopez-Agudo, Luis Alejandro & Marcenaro-Gutierrez, Oscar David, 2021. "The relationship between overweight and academic performance, life satisfaction and school life," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    7. Black, Nicole & Hughes, Robert & Jones, Andrew M., 2018. "The health care costs of childhood obesity in Australia: An instrumental variables approach," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 1-13.
    8. Cotti, Chad & Tefft, Nathan, 2013. "Fast food prices, obesity, and the minimum wage," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 134-147.
    9. Costa-Font, Joan & Gil, Joan, 2013. "Intergenerational and socioeconomic gradients of child obesity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 29-37.
    10. Breitfelder, Ariane & Wenig, Christina M. & Wolfenstetter, Silke B. & Rzehak, Peter & Menn, Petra & John, Jürgen & Leidl, Reiner & Bauer, Carl Peter & Koletzko, Sibylle & Röder, Stefan & Herbarth, Olf, 2011. "Relative weight-related costs of healthcare use by children--Results from the two German birth cohorts, GINI-plus and LISA-plus," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 302-315, July.
    11. Irina B. Grafova & Alan C. Monheit & Rizie Kumar, 2020. "How do changes in income, employment and health insurance affect family mental health spending?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 239-263, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christina Wenig, 2012. "The impact of BMI on direct costs in Children and Adolescents: empirical findings for the German Healthcare System based on the KiGGS-study," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 13(1), pages 39-50, February.
    2. Cawley, John & Meyerhoefer, Chad, 2012. "The medical care costs of obesity: An instrumental variables approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 219-230.
    3. Breitfelder, Ariane & Wenig, Christina M. & Wolfenstetter, Silke B. & Rzehak, Peter & Menn, Petra & John, Jürgen & Leidl, Reiner & Bauer, Carl Peter & Koletzko, Sibylle & Röder, Stefan & Herbarth, Olf, 2011. "Relative weight-related costs of healthcare use by children--Results from the two German birth cohorts, GINI-plus and LISA-plus," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 302-315, July.
    4. Kinge, Jonas Minet & Morris, Stephan, 2015. "The impact of childhood obesity on health and health service use: an instrumental variable approach," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2015:2, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
    5. Cawley, John, 2008. "Contingent valuation analysis of willingness to pay to reduce childhood obesity," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 281-292, July.
    6. Odelia Rosin, 2008. "The Economic Causes Of Obesity: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 617-647, September.
    7. Black, Nicole & Hughes, Robert & Jones, Andrew M., 2018. "The health care costs of childhood obesity in Australia: An instrumental variables approach," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 1-13.
    8. Stefan J Meyer, 2016. "Obesity and Health-Care Costs in Switzerland: Dealing with Endogeneity in Non-Linear Regression Models," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 152(III), pages 243-286, September.
    9. Bozzi, Debra G. & Nicholas, Lauren Hersch, 2021. "A Causal Estimate of Long-Term Health Care Spending Attributable to Body Mass Index Among Adults," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    10. Xuezheng Qin & Jay Pan, 2016. "The Medical Cost Attributable to Obesity and Overweight in China: Estimation Based on Longitudinal Surveys," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(10), pages 1291-1311, October.
    11. Stefan Meyer, 2016. "Obesity and Health-Care Costs in Switzerland: Dealing with Endogeneity in Non-Linear Regression Models," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 152(3), pages 243-286, July.
    12. Md. Alauddin Majumder, 2013. "Does Obesity Matter for Wages? Evidence from the United States," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 32(2), pages 200-217, June.
    13. Gordon Dahl, 2010. "Early teen marriage and future poverty," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(3), pages 689-718, August.
    14. Maximilian D. Schmeiser, 2012. "The impact of long‐term participation in the supplemental nutrition assistance program on child obesity," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(4), pages 386-404, April.
    15. Samuel Sebsibie & Workineh Asmare & Tessema Endalkachew, 2015. "Agricultural Technology Adoption and Rural Poverty: a Study on Smallholders in Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia," Ethiopian Journal of Economics, Ethiopian Economics Association, vol. 23(2), December.
    16. Thorvaldur Gylfason & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Per Magnus Wijkman, 2015. "Free Trade Agreements, Institutions and the Exports of Eastern Partnership Countries," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(6), pages 1214-1229, November.
    17. Patrick Richard & Regine Walker & Pierre Alexandre, 2018. "The burden of out of pocket costs and medical debt faced by households with chronic health conditions in the United States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(6), pages 1-13, June.
    18. Sankar Mukhopadhyay & Wei Yang & Wai Lee & Jeanne Wendel, 2008. "Analyzing the impact of prenatal care on infant health: do we have useful input and output measures?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 9(22), pages 1-14.
    19. Trottmann, Maria & Zweifel, Peter & Beck, Konstantin, 2012. "Supply-side and demand-side cost sharing in deregulated social health insurance: Which is more effective?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 231-242.
    20. von Hinke Kessler Scholder S, 2009. "Genetic Markers as Instrumental Variables: An Application to Child Fat Mass and Academic Achievement," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 09/25, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    BMI Adolescents Health expenditures;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:7:y:2009:i:1:p:55-63. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622964 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.