IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/aeapps/aea-06-2023-0212.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mental health and obesity

Author

Listed:
  • Dusanee Kesavayuth
  • Vasileios Zikos

Abstract

Purpose - Obesity is a significant public health issue. With obesity increasing worldwide, risk factors for obesity need to be better understood and require careful examination. This study aims to examine mental health as a risk factor for obesity using longitudinal data from Australia. Design/methodology/approach - The main identification strategy relies on the recent death of a close friend and a serious injury or illness to a family member as exogenous shocks to mental health. Findings - The authors’ preferred estimates, which account for the endogeneity of mental health, suggest that mental health has a significant negative impact on obesity. This result proves to be robust to a suite of sensitivity checks. Further investigations reveal that poor mental health leads to increased smoking, which also has an effect on obesity. Originality/value - The study’s findings provide a new perspective on how good mental health helps curb obesity.

Suggested Citation

  • Dusanee Kesavayuth & Vasileios Zikos, 2024. "Mental health and obesity," Applied Economic Analysis, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 32(94), pages 41-61, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:aeapps:aea-06-2023-0212
    DOI: 10.1108/AEA-06-2023-0212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/AEA-06-2023-0212/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/AEA-06-2023-0212/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/AEA-06-2023-0212?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Obesity; Mental health; Well-being; HILDA; D01; I10;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

    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:eme:aeapps:aea-06-2023-0212. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.