Income and body mass index in Europe

Jaume Garcia Villar and Climent Quintana-Domeque

Economics & Human Biology, 2009, vol. 7, issue 1, 73-83

Abstract: The problem of obesity is alarming public health authorities around the world. Therefore, it is important to study its determinants. In this paper, we explore the empirical relationship between household income and body mass index (BMI) in nine European Union countries. Our findings suggest that, in general, the association is negative for women and nonexistent for men. Moreover, once we decompose household income into "own labor earnings" and "other household income", we find that the different relationship for men and women appears to be driven by the negative relationship between BMI and "own labor earnings" for women.

Keywords: Europe; BMI; Obesity; Overweight; Household; income; Labor; earnings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (70)

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Working Paper: Income and Body Mass Index in Europe (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:7:y:2009:i:1:p:73-83

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