Going the same 'weigh': spousal correlations in obesity in the UK

Heather Brown, Arne Hole and Jennifer Roberts

No 2010012, Working Papers from The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics

Abstract: The obesity epidemic has received widespread media and research attention. However, the social phenomenon of obesity is still not well understood. Data from the 2004 and 2006 waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) show positive and significant correlations in spousal body mass index (BMI). This paper explores three mechanisms of shared individual characteristics, social influence and shared environment to explain this correlation. A number of econometric specifications are used to investigate the role of observed individual characteristics, own health, spouse health, social influence, contextual effects and unobserved individual effects on the influence of these three hypotheses on the correlation in spousal BMI. Results indicate that social influence and shared individual characteristics, which may arise through assortative matching, both contribute to correlation in spousal BMI.

Keywords: marriage; BMI; obesity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 I10 J12 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2010-06, Revised 2010-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:shf:wpaper:2010012

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