Are the Slimmer More Wasteful? The Correlation between Body Mass Index and Food Wastage among Chinese Youth

Abstract

With the economic growth and living standard improvement, food waste has become increasingly common among Chinese youth. To test whether body size affects the food waste performance of youth, we examined university students as representative of the Chinese youth and conducted a large-sample survey in 29 universities across 29 provinces. Based on 9192 questionnaires collected from Chinese college canteens, we found that body size was correlated with food waste. The smaller the body mass index (BMI) value, the higher the likelihood of plate waste, the higher the amount of waste, and the higher the ratio of food waste. Heterogeneity analyses revealed that BMI exerted a more significant impact on males than females, as well as a more substantial impact on northerners than southerners. Robust tests using other proxies to measure body size, robust regressions based on the new adjusted samples, and robust tests with an instrumental variable to overcome the endogenous issue suggested that the slimmer participants tended to be more wasteful. Hence, this study confirms that the slimmer youth tend to leave plate waste and waste more food per capita per meal. This study is the first attempt to analyze food wastage from the perspective of BMI in China to our best knowledge, and it provides a unique viewpoint for understanding young people’s food wastage.

Research for Rural Development 2022 : annual 28th International scientific conference proceedings

“…Physical human factors. Food consumption is affected by body weight (Park, Choi, & Kim, 2015), metabolism (Shanks, Banna, & Serrano, 2017), as well as the body mass index (BMI); it was found that the lower the BMI, the higher the probability of food waste, and various tests showed that the slimmest participants tended to waste more food (Qian et al, 2022b).…”

Analysis of factors affecting zero-waste food consumption in schools

“…Physical human factors. Food consumption is affected by body weight (Park, Choi, & Kim, 2015), metabolism , as well as the body mass index (BMI); it was found that the lower the BMI, the higher the probability of food waste, and various tests showed that the slimmest participants tended to waste more food (Qian et al, 2022b).…”

Identifying the Drivers of Food Waste in University Canteens in China: A Qualitative Approach

“…Chinese university canteens waste a great deal of food (Cheng et al, 2018; Ma et al, 2021). Studies have mainly used quantitative research methods to explore how demographic characteristics (Ma et al, 2021; Qian et al, 2021; Qian, Li, Liu, & Wang, 2022), social and family structure (Y. Liu et al, 2016; Wu et al, 2019), and dining characteristics (Lorenz et al, 2017; Mirosa, Munro et al, 2016; Richardson et al, 2021; C.…”

“…In addition, Qian et al (2021) found that more educated students were less likely to waste food, with undergraduate students being more likely to waste food than graduate students. In another study, Qian, Li, Liu, and Wang (2022) demonstrated that thinner students wasted more food; in other words, students with higher BMIs were less likely to waste food.…”

“…The plate waste of student consumers in school canteens has been shown to be correlated with demographic characteristics such as gender, education level, and body mass index (BMI). Numerous studies have found that female adolescents statistically cause more waste than males, possibly because they generally eat smaller meals (Al-Domi et al, 2011; Qian, Li, Liu, & Wang, 2022) and are more likely to waste food when eating from larger plates (Ma et al, 2021; Richardson et al, 2021). Studies have also found that there are differences in the types of food wasted by male and female students, with male students wasting more vegetables and poultry and female students wasting more rice and flour-based staples (Li et al, 2018).…”