Obesity under affluence varies by welfare regimes: The effect of fast food, insecurity, and inequality

Avner Offer (), Rachel Pechey and Stanley Ulijaszek

Economics & Human Biology, 2010, vol. 8, issue 3, 297-308

Abstract: Among affluent countries, those with market-liberal welfare regimes (which are also English-speaking) tend to have the highest prevalence of obesity. The impact of cheap, accessible high-energy food is often invoked in explanation. An alternative approach is that overeating is a response to stress, and that competition, uncertainty, and inequality make market-liberal societies more stressful. This ecological regression meta-study pools 96 body-weight surveys from 11 countries c. 1994-2004. The fast-food [`]shock' impact is found to work most strongly in market-liberal countries. Economic insecurity, measured in several different ways, was almost twice as powerful, while the impact of inequality was weak, and went in the opposite direction.

Keywords: Obesity; Market; liberal; Insecurity; Inequality; Food; shock; Stress (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (51)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:8:y:2010:i:3:p:297-308

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