Obesity rates have risen dramatically in the US since the 1980s, but well-identified studies have struggled to explain the magnitude of the observed changes. In this paper, we estimate the causal impact of economic insecurity on obesity rates. Specifically, we construct a synthetic panel of...

This paper models the welfare consequences of social fragmentation arising from technological advance. We start from the premise that technological progress falls primarily on market-traded commodities rather than prosocial relationships, since the latter intrinsically require the expenditure of...

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...

In this paper we explore a serious eating disorder, bulimia nervosa (BN), which afflicts a surprising number of girls in the US. We challenge the long-held belief that BN primarily affects high income White teenagers, using a unique data set on adolescent females evaluated regarding their...

Child care subsidies play a critical role in facilitating the transition of disadvantaged mothers from welfare to work. However, little is known about the influence of these policies on children's health and well-being. In this paper, we study the impact of subsidy receipt on low-income...

Using the 2006-07 American Time Use Survey and its Eating and Health Module, I show that over half of adult Americans report grazing (secondary eating/drinking) on a typical day, with grazing time almost equaling primary eating/drinking time. An economic model predicts that higher wage rates...

Eating requires the food materials that make up meals and also time devoted to buying food, preparing meals and eating them, and cleaning up afterwards. Using time-diary and expenditure data for the U.S. for 1985 and 2003, I examine how income and time prices affect time and goods inputs into...

Many studies have shown that obesity is a serious health problem for our society. Empirical analyses often neglect a number of methodological issues and relevant influences on health. This paper investigates empirically whether neglecting these items leads to systematically different estimates....

Based on the German Socio-Economic Panel, the influence of the body mass index on health, earnings and satisfaction is analysed by gender. Basic results are: health worsens, income declines and satisfaction is poorer with higher body mass index. If control variables are added, estimates are...

Between the early 1970s and very nearly the present, Indians' per capita calorie consumption declined. This decline, perplexing in the face of rising per capita income when malnutrition is rampant, has been termed India's Calorie Consumption Puzzle. It has been partially attributed to a squeeze...