Obesity (Sometimes) Matters

Wadsworth, Tim; Pendergast, Philip M.

doi:10.1177/0022146514533347

Cited by 57 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(65 reference statements)

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“…2 Of course, adverse labor market outcomes (low wages or unemployment) may lead to obesity if fat sugary food is an inferior good. 3 Wadsworth and Pendergast (2014) also use the same data source ( -2008 and find a negative association between obesity and life satisfaction, but they do not examine overweight individuals. In addition, in order to control for health, they use self-reported health, which is highly endogenous with life satisfaction.…”

Section: An Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life satisfaction, overweightness and obesity

Kuroki

2016

Intnl. J. Wellbeing

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Many economists share the view that the rise in obesity is largely the result of rational decision-making by individuals who compare risks and benefits. A dominant view among economists is that there is no economic justification for government intervention unless there is a market failure. However, recent developments in behavioral economics suggests that people often fail to make optimal decisions, and that public welfare may be improved by government interventions even when there is no externality. This paper examines the association between one's body weight and life satisfaction by utilizing data on self-reported life satisfaction, which approximates individual utility, after briefly reviewing the economics of obesity and discussing the rationale and justification of obesity-related policies. Using a large data set (N = 1,465,219), it is found that life satisfaction of people who are overweight or obese is lower. The adverse life satisfaction effect of obesity remains statistically significant, even when socioeconomic factors and obesity-related health variables are controlled. The findings suggest that many overweight and obese people may be making sub-optimal decisions when it comes to eating. While the findings are not causal and thus do not necessarily suggest that government intervention will be welfareenhancing even in the absence of negative externalities, effective anti-obesity policies may lead to higher life satisfaction among many overweight people who are struggling with self-control problems.

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Section: An Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life satisfaction, overweightness and obesity

Kuroki

2016

Intnl. J. Wellbeing

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“…The authors suggest that, for a variety of reasons, it may be easier to be fat in a society that is fat, and provide empirical evidence that relative BMI influences subjective well-being. A more recent study demonstrates that the degree to which obesity is negatively associated with life satisfaction can be mitigated by the prevalence of obesity in a given geographic context [ 18 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring and tracking obesity inequality in the United States: evidence from NHANES, 1971-2014

Pak

Ferreira

Colson

2016

Popul Health Metrics

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BackgroundBecause people care about their weight relative to peers and society, obesity inequality plays a role in explaining obesity incidence and the impacts of being obese on subjective well-being. While the increase in obesity prevalence and mean body mass index (BMI) is well documented, the measurement of distributional changes and corresponding obesity inequality is yet to be fully explored.MethodsThe present study analyzed BMI data for adults aged 20 to 74 from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) I (1971-1974), II (1976-1980), III (1988-1994), and continuous NHANES (1999-2014). We applied tools developed to measure income inequality to analyze the inter-temporal variation in the BMI distribution among US adults. Using stochastic dominance tests, we construct partial orderings on cumulative BMI distributions during the study period. Shapley decompositions and inequality indices are employed to quantify the source and extent of temporal variation and decompose the inequality into within and between-group components considering age, gender, and race.ResultsThe BMI distribution of each NHANES study first-order stochastically dominated the BMI distribution of the previous wave from 1971-1974 to 2003-2006, whereas more recent comparisons failed to reject the null hypothesis of non-dominance. The Shapley decomposition analysis revealed that horizontal shifts of BMI distributions accounted for a majority of the increase in obesity prevalence since 1988-1991. Especially in recent years when the rate of obesity growth has slowed down, the contribution of the redistribution component dropped significantly and even became negative between 2007-2010 and 2011-2014. The inequality indexes consistently show a worsening of obesity inequality from the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s regardless of population subgroups, and this disproportionate shift of the BMI distribution is unlikely to be a result of a changing ethnic composition of the US population.ConclusionOur findings demonstrate that seemingly similar increases in obesity prevalence can be accompanied by very different patterns of distribution change. We find that the early phase of the obesity epidemic in the US was largely driven by increasing skewness, whereas more recent growth is a population-wide experience, regardless of demographic characteristics. Increasing morbid obesity certainly played an important role in the initial phase of the epidemic, but more recently the BMI distribution has largely horizontally shifted to the right.

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“…Compared to physical, mental, and obesity-specific QoL, life satisfaction is a broader QoL construct representing a subjective and global assessment of all major dimensions of life [ 9 ]. Using single item measures on life satisfaction, obesity was associated with impaired life satisfaction in two U.S. population studies [ 10 , 11 ], whereas a Danish epidemiological study, controlling for a cluster of lifestyle-related factors including body mass index (BMI), found independent positive associations between self-reported physical activity and life satisfaction [ 12 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical Activity and Quality of Life in Severely Obese Adults during a Two-Year Lifestyle Intervention Programme

Jepsen

Aadland²,

Robertson

et al. 2015

Journal of Obesity

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It is unknown how changes in physical activity may affect changes in quality of life (QoL) outcomes during lifestyle interventions for severely obese adults. The purpose of this study was to examine associations in the patterns of change between objectively assessed physical activity as the independent variable and physical, mental, and obesity-specific QoL and life satisfaction as the dependent variables during a two-year lifestyle intervention. Forty-nine severely obese adults (37 women; 43.6 ± 9.4 years; body mass index 42.1 ± 6.0 kg/m2) participated in the study. Assessments were conducted four times using Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36), Obesity-Related Problems (OP) scale, a single item on life satisfaction, and accelerometers. The physical component summary (PCS) score and the mental component summary (MCS) score were used as SF-36 outcomes. Associations were determined using linear regression analyses and reported as standardized coefficients (stand. coeff.). Change in physical activity was independently associated with change in PCS (stand. coeff. = 0.35, P = .033), MCS (stand. coeff. = 0.51, P = .001), OP (stand. coeff. = −0.31, P = .018), and life satisfaction (stand. coeff. = 0.39, P = .004) after adjustment for gender, age, and change in body mass index.

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Obesity (Sometimes) Matters

Cited by 57 publications

References 60 publications

Life satisfaction, overweightness and obesity

Life satisfaction, overweightness and obesity

Measuring and tracking obesity inequality in the United States: evidence from NHANES, 1971-2014

Physical Activity and Quality of Life in Severely Obese Adults during a Two-Year Lifestyle Intervention Programme

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