IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/98727.html

An Empirical Investigation of Obesity & Income and Education

Author

Listed:
  • Ozyapi, Sena

Abstract

Rising trends in obesity epidemic have become a serious issue for states and policymakers. Earlier studies in the medical literature have discussed the impacts of income and education levels on obesity prevalence to detect the importance of socioeconomic patterns. Recently, in the economic literature, there are studies that investigate poverty-obesity paradox. In this study, using a cross-sectional data set covering 31 countries from Eurostat for 2014, we estimate the effects of income and education levels on obesity prevalence among different age groups and countries of origin. Our results show that increasing education and income have a significant and negative influence on obesity prevalence. In addition, we found that obesity is less likely to occur in countries with higher social welfare spending.

Suggested Citation

  • Ozyapi, Sena, 2019. "An Empirical Investigation of Obesity & Income and Education," MPRA Paper 98727, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 12 Aug 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:98727
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/98727/1/MPRA_paper_98727.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/99076/1/MPRA_paper_99076.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lakdawalla, Darius & Philipson, Tomas, 2009. "The growth of obesity and technological change," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 283-293, December.
    2. Zhang, Qi & Wang, Youfa, 2004. "Socioeconomic inequality of obesity in the United States: do gender, age, and ethnicity matter?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(6), pages 1171-1180, March.
    3. Powell, Lisa M., 2009. "Fast food costs and adolescent body mass index: Evidence from panel data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 963-970, September.
    4. Salmasi, Luca & Celidoni, Martina, 2017. "Investigating the poverty-obesity paradox in Europe," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 70-85.
    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. Staudigel, Matthias, 2011. "How (much) do food prices contribute to obesity in Russia?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 133-147, March.
    2. Daouli, Joan & Davillas, Apostolos & Demoussis, Michael & Giannakopoulos, Nicholas, 2014. "Obesity persistence and duration dependence: Evidence from a cohort of US adults (1985–2010)," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 30-44.
    3. Chavas, Jean-Paul, 2013. "On the microeconomics of food and malnutrition under endogenous discounting," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 80-96.
    4. Athina Raftopoulou & Joan Gil Trasfi, 2024. "Income-related inequality in obesity and its determinants in Spain: What happens beyond the obesity threshold?," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 135-153, March.
    5. Cotti, Chad & Tefft, Nathan, 2013. "Fast food prices, obesity, and the minimum wage," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 134-147.
    6. Matthias Staudigel, 2012. "How do obese people afford to be obese? Consumption strategies of Russian households," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 43(6), pages 701-714, November.
    7. Harris, Matthew C., 2017. "Imperfect information on physical activity and caloric intake," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 112-125.
    8. Giuntella, Osea & Rieger, Matthias & Rotunno, Lorenzo, 2020. "Weight gains from trade in foods: Evidence from Mexico," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    9. Yakusheva, Olga & Kapinos, Kandice & Weiss, Marianne, 2011. "Peer effects and the Freshman 15: Evidence from a natural experiment," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 119-132, March.
    10. Sriparna Ghosh & Joshua C. Hall, 2018. "The Political Economy of Soda Taxation," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(2), pages 1045-1051.
    11. Chen, Duan-Rung & Wen, Tzai-Hung, 2010. "Socio-spatial patterns of neighborhood effects on adult obesity in Taiwan: A multi-level model," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(6), pages 823-833, March.
    12. Sarma, Sisira & Zaric, Gregory S. & Campbell, M. Karen & Gilliland, Jason, 2014. "The effect of physical activity on adult obesity: Evidence from the Canadian NPHS panel," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 14(C), pages 1-21.
    13. Brunello, Giorgio & D'Hombres, Beatrice, 2007. "Does body weight affect wages?: Evidence from Europe," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 1-19, March.
    14. Euna Han & Lisa M. Powell, 2013. "Fast Food Prices And Adult Body Weight Outcomes: Evidence Based On Longitudinal Quantile Regression Models," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(3), pages 528-536, July.
    15. Lien, Jaimie W. & Zheng, Jie, 2018. "Are work intensity and healthy eating substitutes? Field evidence on food choices under varying workloads," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 370-401.
    16. Ver Ploeg, Michele & Mancino, Lisa & Lin, Biing-Hwan & Wang, Chia-Yih, 2007. "The vanishing weight gap: Trends in obesity among adult food stamp participants (US) (1976-2002)," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 20-36, March.
    17. Maruyama, Shiko & Nakamura, Sayaka, 2018. "Why are women slimmer than men in developed countries?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 1-13.
    18. Philip B Mason & Frank M. Howell & Jeremy R. Porter, 2014. "Examining Rural-Urban Obesity Trends among Youth in the U.S.: Testing the Socioeconomic Gradient Hypothesis," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 4(12), pages 27-42, December.
    19. Chen, Zhuo & Roy, Kakoli, 2009. "Calculating concentration index with repetitive values of indicators of economic welfare," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 169-175, January.
    20. Cavaco, Sandra & Eriksson, Tor & Skalli, Ali, 2014. "Life cycle development of obesity and its determinants in six European countries," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 14(C), pages 62-78.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I0 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I29 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Other
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:98727. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.