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Challenging The Spirit Level : Is There Really a Relationship between Inequality and Obesity?
Author(s) -
Zala Darshan
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
economic affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.24
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1468-0270
pISSN - 0265-0665
DOI - 10.1111/ecaf.12016
Subject(s) - inequality , obesity , proposition , economic inequality , population , set (abstract data type) , demographic economics , economics , public economics , sociology , demography , medicine , mathematics , endocrinology , computer science , epistemology , mathematical analysis , philosophy , programming language
This paper examines the proposition, set out in The Spirit Level , that inequality is associated with high levels of obesity. It reviews existing literature and uses B ritish H ousehold P anel S urvey data to study how district‐level and regional‐level income inequality is related to obesity in the UK . This is likely to be the first study of its type that uses individual‐level data that is representative of the UK population. We find little evidence to support policies that reduce income inequality with the aim of reducing obesity levels in the UK .