Is Poor Fitness Contagious? Evidence from Randomly Assigned Friends

Scott Carrell, Mark Hoekstra and James West

No 16518, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The increase in obesity over the past thirty years has led researchers to investigate the role of social networks as a contributing factor. However, several challenges make it difficult to demonstrate a causal link between friends' physical fitness and own fitness using observational data. To overcome these problems, we exploit data from a unique setting in which individuals are randomly assigned to peer groups. We find statistically significant peer effects that are 40 to 70 percent as large as the own effect of prior fitness scores on current fitness outcomes. Evidence suggests that the effects are caused primarily by friends who were the least fit, thus supporting the provocative notion that poor physical fitness spreads on a person-to-person basis.

JEL-codes: I18 I2 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ure
Note: ED EH LS PE
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Published as Carrell, Scott E. & Hoekstra, Mark & West, James E., 2011. "Is poor fitness contagious?: Evidence from randomly assigned friends," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 657-663, August.

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Journal Article: Is poor fitness contagious? (2011)
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