Intergenerational Transmission of Healthy Eating Behaviour and the Role of Household Income

Alison Goode (), Kostas Mavromaras and Murray Smith ()
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Alison Goode: Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research
Murray Smith: University of Aberdeen

No 3535, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper investigates the possibility of intergenerational transmission of unhealthy eating habits from parents to adult children. It uses the 2003 Scottish Health Survey and estimates the association between the present healthy eating behaviour of adult children and the past parental death from cardiovascular disease (CVD). It uses parental CVD death as an adverse health signal which may cause a healthy eating compensatory response in adult children. This response is due to increased chances and perception of genetic predisposition of adult children as well as an indicator for parental past unhealthy eating habits which may have been passed onto the adult children. Regression analysis suggests that paternal history has no impact on either sons or daughters, and maternal history influences negatively the eating behaviour of daughters only. Unhealthy eating intergenerational transmission appears to be more intense amongst lower household income individuals.

Keywords: intergenerational transmission; healthy eating; household income; cardiovascular disease; public health; gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 I12 I18 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2008-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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