Economic factors affecting the increase in obesity in the United States: Differential response to price
- 作者：Dragan Miljkovic ; William Nganje ; Helene de Chastenet
- 关键词：Food prices ; Obesity ; Rational addiction
- 刊名：Food Policy
- 出版年：2008
- 期刊代码：16_03069192
- 类别：eco
- 出版时间：February 2008
- 卷：33
- 期：1
- 页码：48-60
- 文件大小：401 K
摘要
A sharp increase in obesity during the last 15 years in the United States became one of the nation’s main public health problems. The theory of rational addiction seems to explain human behavior in food consumption leading to obesity reasonably well. The interesting thing about our results is that the tax policy, normally used to correct various distortions, is to serve in this case as the preventive policy: additional taxes on future prices of the addictive (sweet) foods contribute to lower sugar consumption and BMI at present time. On the other hand, increasing education level is usually considered a preventive type of policy. In this case, it leads to lowering the levels of the BMI in already overweight and obese population.