IMITATIVE OBESITY AND RELATIVE UTILITY | Zendy

Blanchflower David G. | Zendy; Landeghem Bert | Zendy; Oswald Andrew J. | Zendy

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IMITATIVE OBESITY AND RELATIVE UTILITY

Author(s) -

Blanchflower David G.,

Landeghem Bert,

Oswald Andrew J.

Publication year - 2009

Publication title -

journal of the european economic association

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 7.792

H-Index - 93

eISSN - 1542-4774

pISSN - 1542-4766

DOI - 10.1162/jeea.2009.7.2-3.528

Subject(s) - eurobarometer , keeping up with the joneses , dieting , overweight , obesity , psychology , economics , social psychology , demographic economics , medicine , microeconomics , weight loss , european union , growth model , economic policy

If human beings care about their relative weight, a form of imitative obesity can emerge (in which people subconsciously keep up with the weight of the Joneses). Using Eurobarometer data on 29 countries, this paper provides cross‐sectional evidence that overweight perceptions and dieting are influenced by a person's relative BMI, and longitudinal evidence from the German Socioeconomic Panel that well‐being is influenced by relative BMI. Highly educated people see themselves as fatter—at any given actual weight—than those with low education. These results should be treated cautiously, and fixed‐effects estimates are not always well determined, but there are grounds to take seriously the possibility of socially contagious obesity. (JEL: D1, I12, I31)

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