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Many observers have suggested that tax policy can be used to change the relative prices of foods in ways that will produce desirable health outcomes. We briefly review the economic evidence regarding such claims, and discuss several conceptual and pragmatic issues surrounding the use of such interventions to achieve public health objectives.

Native American obesity and the associated health conditions are generally thought to result in part from a genetic predisposition to overeating fats and carbohydrates, called the "thrifty gene." Although coined by nutritional scientists, this study maintains the origin of the thrifty gene lies in economics. Apparently harmful overconsumption and addiction constitute economically rational behavior if the increment to current utility from adding to one's stock of "consumption capital" is greater than the present value of utility lost in the future due to ill health and the costs of withdrawal. Tests of these conditions for such "rational addiction" are conducted using two-stage household production approach. The results obtained by estimating this model in a panel of Native and non-Native supermarket scanner data show that both Natives and non-Natives tend to be inherently forward-looking in their nutrient choices, but Natives tend to have far higher long-run demand elasticities for carbohydrates compared to non-Natives. Consequently, reductions in real food prices over time, primarily among foods that are dense in simple carbohydrates, leads Native Americans to over-consume potentially harmful nutrients relative to their traditional diet.

“Googling” is now ubiquitous in our society. We typically start searching on Google before we make purchase decisions or when we have interest in certain topics. Aggregating these search data can provide us with real-time and possibly accurate information on people's behavior. In fact, Google keeps tracks of all the search queries and has accumulated a tremendous amount of information about people's interest at the society level. It currently provides search volume data of keywords for different regions and time intervals on its free and public service of Google Trends. An interesting and hot research area is how to exploit the Google Search volume data in innovative ways to benefit our society. This paper aims to reveal the connection between obesity prevalence and people’s online search behavior in the United States by combining data from Google Trends and data from Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) which is updated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) annually. We first handselected keywords that are associated to people's life style and used panel data model to study association between search pattern and obesity level. We found significant correlation power of those keywords with Body Mass Index (BMI) level and results suggest great promise of the idea of obesity monitoring through real-time Google Trends data. We believe this is an important finding and is particularly attractive for government health institutions and private businesses such as insurance companies etc.

The population of the Ounein Valley in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco is at high risk of iodine deficiency. Food consumption habits, iodine deficiency and goiter patterns in local children were investigated through regression analysis using data from a household survey. Median urinary iodine content and goiter analysis both reflected moderate iodine deficiency in the population. Total fish consumption had a statistically significant, positive effect on urinary iodine content. Fish consumption, like that of salt, was closely related to market access. Respondents were generally unaware of the dietary etiology of goiter. An effective strategy to reduce the high incidence of iodine deficiency disorder among children in the valley must attend to four crucial issues: fish consumption, salt iodization, nutrition education, and market access.

Although studies have shown that financial incentives are effective in promoting healthy behaviors, existing interventions have focused on adults in the workforce (e.g. Kullgren et al. 2013). Given that the school environment can be an effective instrument for behavior change, there is a need to examine incentive-based health programs in late-adolescent age groups. Largescale observational studies with about 9,000 freshmen at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) show that every year of college was associated with a 3% BMI increase, especially among minority populations. Reversing or slowing this dynamic has proven difficult because students entering university are newly independent, not experienced in making their own lifedecisions, and encounter many distractions (Nazmi et. al. 2012). On the other hand, university students are uniquely social and social networks have been shown to be effective in leading to behavioral change. Indeed, emerging evidence on peer networks suggests that health behaviors and outcomes are shared, transferred, and influenced through social ties (Christakis and Fowler, 2007; Cohen-Cohen-Cole and Fletcher, 2008). However, few interventions have been designed to capitalize on the behavioral pathways of social networks. The primary purpose of our intervention study is to determine whether financial incentives, mediated by social network effects, are effective in achieving improved diet quality outcomes as measured by the Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI). We will conduct a 3.5-month parallel-design, randomized controlled trial with a racially and ethnically diverse sample of participants who consume food in campus cafeterias. Our findings will provide a unique contribution by testing the efficiency of interventions in structural transmission networks. Given the ubiquitous and increasing existence of social networks, our applications are readily transferrable at relatively low cost to other largescale student populations in elementary, middle, and high schools.

In response to low consumption of fruits and vegetables by SNAP recipients, the USDA Food and Nutrition Service created the Healthy Incentives Pilot (HIP) to test the efficacy of providing a 30% incentive for purchases of fruits and vegetables. Published elasticity estimates imply that a pure price reduction of 30% would increase fruit and vegetable consumption by about 20%, i.e., about a fifth of a cup per day. This paper considers the applicability of predictions based on a pure price reduction. It then reports interim results of a random assignment evaluation of HIP which find an increase of about a fifth of a cup per day.

This article investigates the extent to which Russian households that differ in their members’ weight status adjust their food consumption differently when their economic resources change. Using household-panel data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) from 1995 to 2005, we estimate total expenditure elasticities of food expenditures, food quantities, and food quality for normal-weight, overweight, and obese households, respectively. The expenditure elasticities of quality derived for obese households for meat, bread, fruits, and dairy were found to be 15–20% higher than those of normal households. Hence, a change in economic resources causes obese households to adjust the quality of purchased foods significantly more flexibly than normal-weight households. Only few differences were found for quantity and expenditure reactions. Our results emphasize that policies aiming to reduce obesity should consider deviations in consumption behavior of normal and obese consumers in terms of quality.

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/20/10.

This paper investigates the effects of banning soft drinks in schools on purchases outside of school. We utilize unique household-level and store-level data sources in combination with time-series and cross-sectional variation of state-level regulations in a difference-in-differences (DD) approach. We detect a decrease in the overall trend in sales, but observe this downward trend in households with and without children, as well as in states with and without regulation. Controlling for advertising allows us to further reject that leading brands intensify their advertising efforts and target children to potentially offset their reduced presence at schools. Finally, we find no evidence of substitution effects among possible beverage product alternatives. Our analysis therefore suggests that soft drink bans at school reduce overall soft drink consumption as school age children do not compensate for this limited availability at home.

We investigate the health consequences of changes in the supply of fast food using the exact geographical location of fast food restaurants. Specifically, we ask how the supply of fast food affects the obesity rates of 3 million school children and the weight gain of over 1 million pregnant women. We find that among 9th grade children, a fast food restaurant within a tenth of a mile of a school is associated with at least a 5.2 percent increase in obesity rates. There is no discernable effect at .25 miles and at .5 miles. Among pregnant women, models with mother fixed effects indicate that a fast food restaurant within a half mile of her residence results in a 2.5 percent increase in the probability of gaining over 20 kilos. The effect is larger, but less precisely estimated at .1 miles. In contrast, the presence of non-fast food restaurants is uncorrelated with obesity and weight gain. Moreover, proximity to future fast food restaurants is uncorrelated with current obesity and weight gain, conditional on current proximity to fast food. The implied effects of fast-food on caloric intake are at least one order of magnitude smaller for mothers, which suggests that they are less constrained by travel costs than school children. Our results imply that policies restricting access to fast food near schools could have significant effects on obesity among school children, but similar policies restricting the availability of fast food in residential areas are unlikely to have large effects on adults.

This research uses a survey instrument in the United States and Italy to examine the relationship between consumers’ demographics, attitudes, and behaviors toward food purchasing and their self-described desire to lose weight. Approximately two-thirds of consumers in the United States and slightly over half of consumers in Italy indicated a desire to lose weight. Married consumers with children in the household in both countries are more likely to desire to lose weight. Furthermore, consumers from both countries who desire to lose weight were more likely to agree that “the main meal of the day is the most important time of the day for my household.†Although the main meal of the day is more important to consumers from both countries who desire to lose weight, consumers in the United States who desire to lose weight were more likely to indicate that every member of their families eat the main meal together. Consumers in Italy who desire to lose weight were less likely to indicate that every member of their families eat the main meal together. The self-described overweight consumers in both countries enjoy cooking and have sufficient food for their families. However, the overweight consumer in the United States is often too busy to cook. This research finds no difference in the number of meals eaten away from home in a typical week between those in each country who desire to lose weight and those who do not. Furthermore, in the United States the sources of foods eaten away from home, such as fast food, are not related to the importance to the consumer of weight loss.

Replaced with revised version of paper 08/01/08.

On October 1, 2007, The Food Industry Center presented its Fall Symposium, “The Future and Practice of Healthy Foods.” Leaders from the food industry, academia, and the public sector discussed sustainable and healthy food systems, and the efforts currently underway to make the food supply system in the United States safer, healthier, less wasteful, more sensitive to the environment, and more egalitarian.

The increased prevalence of childhood obesity is a major concern for society. This study aims at exploring the influence of the parents (especially parental time allocation choices) on childrens obesity-related health outcomes and examining the potential differences between the fathers and the mothers marginal effects. A household with two parents and one child is modeled. The household production theory and the collective household modeling structure are combined. The model treats the mother, the father and the child as three separate agents with individual preferences. The two parents interaction is modeled within the collective model framework by assuming that they will reach Pareto efficient resource allocation between them. In order to capture the dynamics between parents and the child, parents-child interaction is modeled in a two-stage Stackleberg game structure where the child is allowed to have certain decision choices of his/her own. This game structure allows us to explore the parental influence on the childs health outcomes while allowing the child to have influencing power in the household decision-making process. Based on this theoretical model, a general triangular system with one childs health production equation and five health inputs demand equations is derived and estimated. The empirical estimation is performed for three systems: pooled model, the younger children model (of age 9 to 11), and the older children model (of age 13 to 15). The empirical results shows positive relationship between total household monthly food expenditure and the childs BMI outcome. Both parents time spent with the child are important and both show negatively significant impact on the childs BMI outcomes in all models and the pool model confirms the statistical difference between paternal and maternal time spent with the child. Other mother-related variables show more influence on the childrens BMI. There exists a complementary relationship between mothers income and fathers time allocation. Fathers have more significant influence on household food expenditure compared to mothers. In general, mothers show more significant influence on the parental time allocation compared to fathers. The main contribution of this study is that it develops a general theoretical framework to capture the dynamics in parents-child interaction. Based on this theoretical model, empirical analysis and future work can be conducted in a theoretically consistent way.

Food away from home is recognized as one of the reasons behind recent overweight and obesity surge. The relationship between Body Mass Index and the distributional effects of food consumed at home and away from home at different levels of aggregation, along with demographic profile covariates are modeled. Demographic variables have the expected effects on BMI established by other studies. Food away from home has a significant positive effect on BMI. The effects of food away from home split into foods at Full- and Quick-service restaurants also affect BMI in the predicted way, with the latter effect being disproportionately larger. Lunch away from home has huge positive effect on BMI.

This paper addresses four issues which arise from increasing concerns about overweight and obesity in European countries. First, we explore the main stylized facts of the phenomenon. We show that although Europeans are not obese like Americans, there is robust evidence that adult and childhood obesity rates tend to increase substantially in many European countries. The second part of the paper surveys the recent theoretical literature on the economics of obesity. In particular, we focus on the debate about the merits and limits of public policies in this area. This paper presents an alternative perspective from that suggested by the rational-choice approach according to which government intervention is not necessary. We emphasize the potential positive role of well-designed public policies by emphasizing that in a world with less than perfect information, externalities, self-control problems, endogenous preferences and social inequalities, the equivalence between individual choice and individual as well as social welfare is weakened. We suggest that the right framework for thinking about public policy in this area is a multi-factor and multi-stakeholder approach. This approach casts some doubt on the notion of a strict link between determinants of weight gain and the choice of policy tools to tackle the phenomenon. We argue that just the multi-factor nature of the obesity phenomenon allows to identify several instruments and policy tools. Several non-food policies targeted to different purposes such as environmental issues, social cohesion, and urban planning can also have useful consequences in mitigating weight gain. Thirdly, we explore the determinants of European obesity patterns. In particular, we examine the relevance for Europe of the food consumption hypothesis recently developed by Cutler, Glaeser and Shapiro according to which technological change easing access to food plays a key role as a determinant of weight gain. It is argued that this hypothesis can provide a plausible explanation for overweight and obesity patterns in Europe, although we also find that in some countries there is evidence of weight gains in the absence of significant increases in food calorie intake. Finally, the paper proceeds to examine current policies in Europe at both national and European Union level and the implications of the findings for addressing more effective policies.

Results from a random sample of 1,300 households in Louisiana suggest that consumers know of the diet-related illnesses stemming from over-consumption of sodium. Levels of awareness are higher among older respondents, college graduates, women, those who live in single-person households, or those who are unmarried. Nutritional educational efforts must continue so that more persons will be able to link diseases with diets and subsequently be able to make better food choices.

The Nutrition and Health Characteristics of Low-Income Populations study examined several measures of body weight status for children and adults using 1988-94 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data. The measures provide a baseline to monitor the weight status of Americans, focusing on the low-income population.

The Nutrition and Health Characteristics of Low-Income Populations study examined several eating behaviors for children and adults using 1988-1994 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES-III) data. This summary focuses on the nutritional biochemistry blood tests and bone density measures that showed differences between income groups. The measures provide a baseline to monitor eating behaviors of Americans, focusing on the low-income population.

Changes in lifestyles and higher caloric consumption are contributing to increasing obesity rates around the world. This article discusses the role of these and other socioeconomic factors and the magnitude of societal costs caused by the increasing prevalence of obesity.

The US population now leads the world in obesity rates. The estimated societal cost of the overweight and obesity issue exceeds $115 billion. Policy may play a role if economically justifiable but conflicting interests exist.

Obesity is a sizable problem. Gaps in consumer information and the contribution of obesity to societal costs raise the possibility for government policy actions. However, any such action must be justified by benefits in excess of policy-induced costs.

The purpose of this study is to better characterize factors associated with the likelihood of macronutrient excess or inadequacy among U.S adults by modeling parts of the conditional distribution of dietary intakes other than the conditional mean. The risk of dietary inadequacy or excess faced by an individual tends to increase as his or her intake moves from the mean of a nutrient intake distribution toward its tails. Therefore, marginal effects of explanatory variables estimated at the conditional mean using ordinary least squares may be of limited value in characterizing these distributions. Quantile regression is effective in this situation since it can estimate conditional functions at any part of the distribution. Quantile regressions based on data from USDA's 1994-96 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals indicate that differences in mean macronutrient intakes based on sociodemographic characteristics can be quite different from intake differences at other parts of the distributions. Therefore, judging dietary disparities between subpopulations by comparing mean intakes only, and not by comparing intakes at other parts of the distributions, may lead to misleading or incomplete conclusions.

Examines linkages between food and health spending patterns, income, and health status of the elderly. Links these relationships to food insecurity and expenditures on nutraceuticals. Methodology includes simultaneous estimation of expenditure systems and health production functions. Preliminary results indicate simultaneity between health production function and spending patterns throughout the life cycle.

Data from NHANES are used to analyze the effect of the WIC program on the health of U.S. preschool children's health. A household health production model shows that WIC does improve the health of children, along with a higher poverty income ratio. Region of the country or county is also significant.

This report expands aggregate lifecycle expenditure analysis by separating generational or cohort effects from aging effects. This is important since different generations or age groups may exhibit expenditure patterns that are the result of higher incomes and/or different tastes and preferences. Ignoring these generational effects produces income and consumption age profiles that can be misleading. With accurate consumption and age profiles, policymakers can gain a better idea of food intake patterns by cohort, and thereby identify groups that may need additional diet and health information. Using survey data to follow eight cohort groups from 1982 through 1995, this study found that: real per capita income increased for all cohorts, except for the very youngest, with a peak in earnings between the ages of 50 and 59; all food categories except for vegetables and sugar and sweets have statistically significant cohort effects; younger cohorts spent less than older cohorts on food at home, meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy products, but more on cereal and bakery goods as well as miscellaneous prepared foods. This study found no evidence that younger cohorts spend more than older cohorts on food away from home.

Foodborne pathogens cause millions of human illnesses annually, many resulting in death or chronic illnesses. Universal methods to evaluate microbial risks and their associated costs have yet to be developed. Typically, risk analysis and economic analysis have been carried out independently. In this paper, we link a risk analysis model based on typical slaughterhouse practices with a decision model to evaluate the cost effectiveness of various combinations of pathogen reducing technologies. We describe technological change with regard to pathogen reduction in meat and compare the use, effectiveness, and the degree to which different control technologies have penetrated the market. We follow with the description of a cost-effectiveness framework for evaluating technology adoption and provide an illustration for generic E. coli. In particular, we show that some options appear in every combination of technologies that are not inferior in both the cost dimension and effectiveness, and should be preferred. The paper concludes with a discussion of the institutional (and other) barriers affecting the adoption and development of more effective technologies for pathogen reduction.

This paper provides an overview of major demographic and food trends in Poland and the rapid changes in Polish food retailing. The demographic changes include the size of the population; birth, death, marriage and divorce rates; the age distribution, education and household types. Two important demographic factors that will affect food consumption are the aging population and the major gap in education between urban and rural areas. In the next 20 years, the number of children will decrease radically, whereas the number of people over 64 years of age will rise significantly. Education levels are much lower in rural than in urban areas. The average household budget share for food was 44.6% in 1988. It reached 55.3% in 1990 at the beginning of the transition to a market economy and fell to 37.8% in 1996. Under central planning, consumers had to adjust to what was made available. There was a limited assortment of goods and many people relied on home-produced food. Since 1989 and the transition to a market economy, food consumption patterns have undergone some substantial changes. Butter consumption has fallen sharply, while plant fat consumption has increased with the introduction of high quality margarine. The change from central planning to a market economy has had a major impact on food retailing. U.S. fast food companies, such as McDonald's, have opened numerous outlets in Poland during the 1990s. Fast food is very popular, especially among young Poles. Under central planning, three government-owned chains dominated grocery retailing in Poland. The food marketing system was producer, not consumer driven. When the right to own private businesses was restored, many new food retailing stores were opened. In 1996, final sales by food retailing stores in Poland were about $100 billion. A large portion of the sales is by small shops. However, foreign-owned grocery retailers have been expanding in Poland and had sales of $5 billion in 1997. The foreign-owned chains open larger stores, supermarkets and even hypermarkets. Many of the major Western European food retailers are now operating in Poland, such as Ahold, a big Dutch company, and Tengelman, a large German company.