Determinants of obesity: The case of Germany

Wolfgang Maennig (), Tobias Schicht and Tim Sievers

The Journal of Socio-Economics, 2008, vol. 37, issue 6, pages 2523-2534

Abstract: Obesity now has the rank of a global epidemic, but finds its severest expression in the economically advanced parts of the world. This study offers an interdisciplinary analysis of obesity in Germany, including socio-economic factors. In comparison to related studies, it uses a continuous BMI variable as well as an improved empirical design. The coefficient of the term for sport activities is significantly negative, and the coefficient for the age terms are significantly positive. The results for the income variable are ambiguous. Cigarette consumption does not indicate negative relationships with individual BMI-levels. No evidence was found for systematic differences in BMI between the eastern and western regions in reunified Germany.

Keywords: Obesity; Socio-economic; factors; Continuous; BMI; variable; Age; Gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6W5H ... 9790c294d17da68ab677
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:37:y:2008:i:6:p:2523-2534

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Socio-Economics is edited by M. Altman

More articles in The Journal of Socio-Economics from Elsevier
Series data maintained by Heidi Boesdal ().