IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/emetrv/v33y2014i1-4p172-196.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Explaining Trends in Body Mass Index Using Demographic Counterfactuals

Author

Listed:
  • Brendan Kline
  • Justin L. Tobias

Abstract

The United States is experiencing a major public health problem relating to increasing levels of excess body fat. This paper is about the relationship in the United States between trends in the distribution of body mass index (BMI), including trends in overweight and obesity, and demographic change. We provide estimates of the counterfactual distribution of BMI that would have been observed in 2003--2008 had demographics remained fixed at 1980 values, roughly the beginning of the period of increasing overweight and obesity. We find that changes in demographics are partly responsible for the changes in the population distribution of BMI and are capable of explaining about 8.6% of the increase in the combined rate of overweight and obesity among women and about 7.2% of the increase among men. We also use demographic projections to predict a BMI distribution and corresponding rates of overweight and obesity for 2050.

Suggested Citation

  • Brendan Kline & Justin L. Tobias, 2014. "Explaining Trends in Body Mass Index Using Demographic Counterfactuals," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(1-4), pages 172-196, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:emetrv:v:33:y:2014:i:1-4:p:172-196
    DOI: 10.1080/07474938.2013.807155
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/07474938.2013.807155
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/07474938.2013.807155?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
    ---><---

    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. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    2. 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.
    3. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    4. Chou, Shin-Yi & Grossman, Michael & Saffer, Henry, 2004. "An economic analysis of adult obesity: results from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 565-587, May.
    5. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    6. Brendan Kline & Justin L. Tobias, 2008. "The wages of BMI: Bayesian analysis of a skewed treatment-response model with nonparametric endogeneity," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(6), pages 767-793.
    7. 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.
    8. John Cawley, 2004. "The Impact of Obesity on Wages," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(2).
    9. Geweke, John, 2007. "Interpretation and inference in mixture models: Simple MCMC works," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 3529-3550, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Cawley, John, 2015. "An economy of scales: A selective review of obesity's economic causes, consequences, and solutions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 244-268.
    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. Åsa Ljungvall & Ulf Gerdtham & Ulf Lindblad, 2015. "Misreporting and misclassification: implications for socioeconomic disparities in body-mass index and obesity," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 16(1), pages 5-20, January.
    4. Courtemanche, Charles & Pinkston, Joshua C. & Stewart, Jay, 2015. "Adjusting body mass for measurement error with invalid validation data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 275-293.
    5. Christian A. Gregory & Christopher J. Ruhm, 2011. "Where Does the Wage Penalty Bite?," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Aspects of Obesity, pages 315-347, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. David Johnston & Wang-Sheng Lee, 2011. "Explaining the Female Black-White Obesity Gap: A Decomposition Analysis of Proximal Causes," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(4), pages 1429-1450, November.
    7. John Cawley & Davide Dragone & Stephanie Von Hinke Kessler Scholder, 2016. "The Demand for Cigarettes as Derived from the Demand for Weight Loss: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 8-23, January.
    8. Caliendo, Marco & Lee, Wang-Sheng, 2013. "Fat chance! Obesity and the transition from unemployment to employment," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 121-133.
    9. John Cawley & Johanna Catherine Maclean, 2012. "Unfit For Service: The Implications Of Rising Obesity For Us Military Recruitment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(11), pages 1348-1366, November.
    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. Classen, Timothy J., 2010. "Measures of the intergenerational transmission of body mass index between mothers and their children in the United States, 1981-2004," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 30-43, March.
    12. Atella, Vincenzo & Pace, Noemi & Vuri, Daniela, 2008. "Are employers discriminating with respect to weight?: European Evidence using Quantile Regression," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 305-329, December.
    13. Averett, Susan L. & Stacey, Nicholas & Wang, Yang, 2014. "Decomposing race and gender differences in underweight and obesity in South Africa," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 23-40.
    14. David (David Patrick) Madden, 2018. "Changes in BMI in a Cohort of Irish Children: Some Decompositions and Counterfactuals," Working Papers 201802, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    15. Antonio Pacifico, 2023. "Obesity and labour market outcomes in Italy: a dynamic panel data evidence with correlated random effects," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 24(4), pages 557-574, June.
    16. Powell, Lisa M. & Wada, Roy & Krauss, Ramona C. & Wang, Youfa, 2012. "Ethnic disparities in adolescent body mass index in the United States: The role of parental socioeconomic status and economic contextual factors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 469-476.
    17. Thomas Y. Mathä & Alessandro Porpiglia & Michael Ziegelmeyer, 2014. "Wealth differences across borders and the effect of real estate price dynamics: Evidence from two household surveys," BCL working papers 90, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    18. Matias Busso & Patrick Kline, 2008. "Do Local Economic Development Programs Work? Evidence from the Federal Empowerment Zone Program," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1639, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    19. 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.
    20. Töpfer, Marina, 2017. "Detailed RIF decomposition with selection: The gender pay gap in Italy," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 26-2017, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.

    More about this item

    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:taf:emetrv:v:33:y:2014:i:1-4:p:172-196. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/LECR20 .

    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.