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Overweight and Poor? On the Relationship between Income and the Body Mass Index

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  • Jolliffe, Dean

    (World Bank)

Abstract

Contrary to conventional wisdom, NHANES data indicate that the poor have never had a statistically significant higher prevalence of overweight status at any time in the last 35 years. Despite this empirical evidence, the view that the poor are less healthy in terms of excess accumulation of fat persists. This paper provides evidence that conventional wisdom is reflecting important differences in the relationship between income and the body mass index. The first finding is based on distribution-sensitive measures of overweight which indicates that the severity of overweight has been higher for the poor than the nonpoor throughout the last 35 years. The second finding is from a newly introduced estimator, unconditional quantile regression (UQR), which provides a measure of the income-gradient in BMI at different points on the unconditional BMI distribution. The UQR estimator indicates that the strongest relationship between income and BMI is observed at the tails of the distribution. There is a strong negative income gradient in BMI at the obesity threshold and some evidence of a positive gradient at the underweight threshold. Both of these UQR estimates imply that for those at the tails of the BMI distribution, increases in income are correlated with healthier BMI values.

Suggested Citation

  • Jolliffe, Dean, 2010. "Overweight and Poor? On the Relationship between Income and the Body Mass Index," IZA Discussion Papers 5366, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5366
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    4. Sinha, Kompal & Davillas, Apostolos & Jones, Andrew M. & Sharma, Anurag, 2021. "Do socioeconomic health gradients persist over time and beyond income? A distributional analysis using UK biomarker data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    5. Davillas, A.; Jones, A.M.; Benzeval, M.;, 2017. "The income-health gradient: Evidence from self-reported health and biomarkers using longitudinal data on income," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 17/04, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    6. Hayden Stewart & Jeffrey Hyman & Diansheng Dong, 2015. "Menu Labeling Fills the Gaps in Consumers’ Knowledge of the Calorie Content of Restaurant Foods," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(4), pages 491-506, October.
    7. Jian Liu & Yanjun Ren & Thomas Glauben, 2021. "The effect of income inequality on nutritional outcomes: Evidence from rural China," Journal of New Economy, Ural State University of Economics, vol. 22(3), pages 125-143, October.
    8. Böhme, Marcus H. & Persian, Ruth & Stöhr, Tobias, 2015. "Alone but better off? Adult child migration and health of elderly parents in Moldova," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 211-227.
    9. Peng Nie & Qing Li & Alan A. Cohen & Alfonso Sousa-Poza, 2021. "In search of China’s income-health gradient: a biomarker-based analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(48), pages 5599-5618, October.
    10. Len Gill & Simon Rudkin, 2014. "Deconstructing Supermarket Intervention Effects on Fruit and Vegetable Consumption in Areas of Limited Retail Access: Evidence from the Seacroft Study," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(3), pages 649-665, March.
    11. Strulik, Holger, 2014. "A mass phenomenon: The social evolution of obesity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 113-125.
    12. Rosinger, Asher & Tanner, Susan & Leonard, William R., 2013. "Precursors to overnutrition: The effects of household market food expenditures on measures of body composition among Tsimane' adults in lowland Bolivia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 53-60.
    13. Marcel Bilger & Eliza J. Kruger & Eric A. Finkelstein, 2017. "Measuring Socioeconomic Inequality in Obesity: Looking Beyond the Obesity Threshold," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(8), pages 1052-1066, August.
    14. McInerney, Melissa & Meiselbach, Mark K., 2020. "Distributional Effects of Recent Health Insurance Expansions on Weight-Related Outcomes," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    15. Héctor Bellido & J. Ignacio Giménez-Nadal & José Alberto Molina, 2023. "Body mass index and the distribution of housework among British couples," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 1247-1268, December.
    16. Stewart, Hayden & Hyman, Jeffrey & Dong, Diansheng, 2014. "Menu Labeling Imparts New Information About the Calorie Content of Restaurant Foods," Economic Research Report 191035, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    17. Daouli, Joan & Davillas, Apostolos & Demoussis, Michael & Giannakopoulos, Nicholas, 2013. "The determinants of body mass in Greece: Evidence from the National Health Survey," MPRA Paper 66392, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Peng Nie & Yan Li & Lanlin Ding & Alfonso Sousa-Poza, 2021. "Housing Poverty and Healthy Aging in China: Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(18), pages 1-20, September.
    19. McKennie, Caitlin & Argys, Laura M. & Friedson, Andrew I., 2018. "Is Good Health Contagious? The Impact of BMI Environment on Individual BMI," IZA Discussion Papers 11770, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Ren, Yanjun & Castro Campos, Bente & Loy, Jens-Peter & Brosig, Stephan, 2019. "Low-income and overweight in China: Evidence from a life-course utility model," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 18(8), pages 1753-1767.
    21. Liu, Jian & Ren, Yanjun & Glauben, Thomas, 2021. "The effect of income inequality on nutritional outcomes: Evidence from rural China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 22(3), pages 125-143.
    22. Duc, Le Thuc, 2019. "Household wealth and gender gap widening in height: Evidence from adolescents in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 208-215.
    23. Davillas, Apostolos & Jones, Andrew M., 2020. "Regional inequalities in adiposity in England: distributional analysis of the contribution of individual-level characteristics and the small area obesogenic environment," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    overweight; obesity; body mass index; unconditional quantile regression; Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty measures; NHANES;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

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