The beginning rise in obesity prevalence rates in South Africa was first noticed already in the early 1990s. Since then, several articles have discussed how the nutrition transition has affected people’s body weights in the country. This article is the first one that uses longitudinal data...

This paper examines developments in childhood and adolescent obesity in Ireland using two waves of the Growing Up in Ireland survey. Obesity appears to level off between the two waves though there is tentative evidence that the socioeconomic gradient, measured with respect to maternal education...

Rising prevalence of obesity among adults and children is a major policy issue in many countries. Two widely discussed instruments to address obesity are a tax on unhealthy foods (fat tax) and a subsidy on healthy foods (thin subsidy). We compare these two policies to a sales tax on all food...

This paper develops a conceptual framework that can explain why economic development goes along with increases in body weight and obesity rates. We first introduce the concept of novelty consumption, which refers to an increase in food availability due to trade or innovation. Then we study how...

We use data from the European Community Household Panel to investigate the impact of obesity on wages in 9 European countries, ranging from Ireland to Spain. We find that the common impact of obesity on wages is negative and statistically significant, independently of gender. Given the nature of...

In response to the growing burden of obesity, public primary prevention programs against obesity have been widely recommended. Several studies estimated the cost effects of diabetes prevention trials for different countries and found that diabetes prevention can be costeffective. Nevertheless,...

This paper contributes to explaining the obesity epidemic and finding a potential remedy. We build a theoretical model of food consumption decisions that accounts for social influence. In our model, individuals' rationality is affected by an endogenous social weight norm, which influences their...

Consistent with prior findings that obese individuals tend to be more risk-averse and myopic, we find that firms located in areas with higher obesity rates invest less, grow more slowly, are less profitable, and have higher stock volatility. We mitigate identification concerns by using an...

We provide the first study estimating the causal effect of air pollution on body weight. Using the China Health and Nutrition Survey, which provides detailed longitudinal health and socioeconomic information for 13,226 adult individuals over 1989-2011, we find significant positive effects of air...

This paper examines the influence of social norms on obesity. We develop a concept of social norm related to social distortion in weight perception developed through shared experiences in a common social environment with a high prevalence of obesity. The theoretical model show that when obesity...