Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/73120 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
Diskussionsbeitrag No. 489
Publisher: 
Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, Hannover
Abstract: 
This paper proposes a theory for the social evolution of obesity. It considers a society, in which individuals experience utility from consumption of food and non-food, the state of their health, and the evaluation of their appearance by others. The theory explains why, ceteris paribus, poor persons are more prone to be severely overweight although eating is expensive and how obesity occurs as a social phenomenon such that body mass continues to rise long after the initial cause (e.g. a lower price of food) is gone. The paper investigates the determinants of a steady-state at which the median citizen is overweight and how an originally lean society arrives at such a steady-state. Extensions of the theory towards dietary choice and the possibility to exercise in order to loose weight demonstrate robustness of the basic mechanism and provide further interesting results.
Subjects: 
Obesity Epidemic
Social Dynamics
Social Multiplier
Income Gradient
Feeling Fat
Feeling Unhealthy
Fat Tax
JEL: 
D11
I14
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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