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Does exercise reduce obesity? Evidence from Australia

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Author Info
Pushkar Maitra () (Department of Economics, Monash University)
Anurag Sharma () (Centre for Health Economics, Monash University)

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Abstract

The International Obesity Taskforce calls obesity one of the most important medical and public health problems of our time. An estimated 1 billion people around the world are over weight, of whom around 300 million are clinically obese. Estimates suggest that obesity levels will continue to rise in the early 21st century - with severe health consequences in the absence of quick and directed intervention. Leaving genetics aside, obesity is essentially due to an imbalance between caloric intake and expenditures i.e, too high caloric intake and too low caloric expenditure. A large part of the economic research on obesity has focused on factors that lead to this imbalance. In this paper we examine the relationship between obesity (as measured by BMI) and the duration of exercise. Single equation estimates show that exercise duration has a negative and statistically significant effect on the probability of being overweight or obese. However when we take into account the potential endogeneity of exercise duration in the BMI regressions (arising from a standard problem of reverse causation), we no longer nd a negative relationship between exercise duration and BMI. There is either no e ect or the e ect is actually positive indicating that the results are essentially driven by individuals who are and who perceive themselves to be overweight and obese conducting more exercise.

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File URL: http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/centres/che/pubs/rp20.pdf
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Monash University, Centre for Health Economics in its series Centre for Health Economics Research Papers with number 20/07.

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Length: 39 pages
Date of creation: Oct 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:mhe:cherps:2007-20

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Postal: Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Building 75, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia
Phone: +61-3-9905-0733
Fax: +61-3-9905-8344
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Web page: http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/centres/che/
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Related research
Keywords: Obesity; exercise; Australia;

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References listed on IDEAS
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    Other versions:
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