Calculations of societal costs of underweight, overweight and obesity have generally failed to include the value of the utility reductions, associated with deviations from normal weight. To remedy this, the monetary compensation needed to offset the welfare loss associated with being underweight, overweight or obese is estimated. For this purpose, the compensating income variation (CIV) method is applied to individual-level data from an Icelandic health and lifestyle survey carried out in 2007, 2009, 2012, and 2017. The results show that both males and females would on average be willing to pay a positive amount to move from obesity to normal weight, albeit a varying amount by income group.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.