IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jeurec/v14y2016i6p1253-1286.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gluttony And Sloth? Calories, Labor Market Activity And The Rise Of Obesity

Author

Listed:
  • Rachel Griffith
  • Rodrigo Lluberas
  • Melanie Lührmann

Abstract

The rise in obesity has largely been attributed to an increase in calorie consumption. We show that official government household survey data indicate that levels of calorie consumption have declined in England between 1980 and 2013; while there has been an increase in calories from food eaten out at restaurants, fast food, soft drinks and confectionery, overall there has been a decrease in total calories purchased. Households have shifted towards more expensive calories, both by substituting away from home production towards market production, and substituting towards higher quality foods. We show that the decline in calories can be partially, but not entirely, rationalized with weight gain by a decline in the strenuousness of work and daily life. (JEL: D12, I12, I18)

Suggested Citation

  • Rachel Griffith & Rodrigo Lluberas & Melanie Lührmann, 2016. "Gluttony And Sloth? Calories, Labor Market Activity And The Rise Of Obesity," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(6), pages 1253-1286, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jeurec:v:14:y:2016:i:6:p:1253-1286
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/jeea.12183
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Altonji, Joseph G, 1986. "Intertemporal Substitution in Labor Supply: Evidence from Micro Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 176-215, June.
    2. Jay Bhattacharya & Neeraj Sood, 2011. "Who Pays for Obesity?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(1), pages 139-158, Winter.
    3. Stephen Nickell & Jumana Saleheen, 2008. "The impact of immigration on occupational wages: evidence from Britain," Working Papers 08-6, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    4. Robert H. Lustig & Laura A. Schmidt & Claire D. Brindis, 2012. "The toxic truth about sugar," Nature, Nature, vol. 482(7383), pages 27-29, February.
    5. Dora L. Costa, 2000. "From Mill Town to Board Room: The Rise of Women's Paid Labor," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 101-122, Fall.
    6. James P. Ziliak & Thomas J. Kniesner, 2005. "The Effect of Income Taxation on Consumption and Labor Supply," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(4), pages 769-796, October.
    7. Stigler, George J., 2011. "Economics of Information," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 35-49.
    8. Horton, Nicholas J. & Kleinman, Ken P., 2007. "Much Ado About Nothing: A Comparison of Missing Data Methods and Software to Fit Incomplete Data Regression Models," The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, vol. 61, pages 79-90, February.
    9. Aviv Nevo & Arlene Wong, 2019. "The Elasticity Of Substitution Between Time And Market Goods: Evidence From The Great Recession," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(1), pages 25-51, February.
    10. Lakdawalla, Darius & Philipson, Tomas, 2009. "The growth of obesity and technological change," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 283-293, December.
    11. Pierre Dubois & Rachel Griffith & Aviv Nevo, 2014. "Do Prices and Attributes Explain International Differences in Food Purchases?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 832-867, March.
    12. Rachel Griffith & Martin O'Connell & Kate Smith, 2016. "Shopping Around: How Households Adjusted Food Spending Over the Great Recession," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(330), pages 247-280, April.
    13. Greg Kaplan & Guido Menzio, 2016. "Shopping Externalities and Self-Fulfilling Unemployment Fluctuations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(3), pages 771-825.
    14. Giorgio Brunello & Pierre-Carl Michaud & Anna Sanz-de-Galdeano, 2009. "The rise of obesity in Europe: an economic perspective [‘Disease and development: the effect of life expectancy on economic growth’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 24(59), pages 551-596.
    15. Janet Currie & Stefano DellaVigna & Enrico Moretti & Vikram Pathania, 2010. "The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity and Weight Gain," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 32-63, August.
    16. Schettkat, Ronald & Yocarini, Lara, 2006. "The shift to services employment: A review of the literature," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 127-147, June.
    17. James Banks & Sarah Smith, 2006. "Retirement in the UK," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 22(1), pages 40-56, Spring.
    18. David M. Cutler & Edward L. Glaeser & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2003. "Why Have Americans Become More Obese?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 93-118, Summer.
    19. Browning, Martin & Meghir, Costas, 1991. "The Effects of Male and Female Labor Supply on Commodity Demands," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(4), pages 925-951, July.
    20. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    21. Darius Lakdawalla & Tomas Philipson, 2007. "Labor Supply and Weight," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(1).
    22. Chou, Shin-Yi & Grossman, Michael & Saffer, Henry, 2004. "An economic analysis of adult obesity: results from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 565-587, May.
    23. Titus Galama, 2011. "A Contribution to Health Capital Theory," Working Papers WR-831, RAND Corporation.
    24. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst, 2007. "Life-Cycle Prices and Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1533-1559, December.
    25. Rashad, Inas, 2006. "Structural estimation of caloric intake, exercise, smoking, and obesity," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 268-283, May.
    26. Richard Blundell & Antoine Bozio & Guy Laroque, 2011. "Labor Supply and the Extensive Margin," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 482-486, May.
    27. Charles L. Baum & Shin-Yi Chou, 2011. "The Socio-Economic Causes of Obesity," NBER Working Papers 17423, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Céline Bonnet & Pierre Dubois & Valérie Orozco, 2014. "Household food consumption, individual caloric intake and obesity in France," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 1143-1166, May.
    29. Royston, Patrick & White, Ian R., 2011. "Multiple Imputation by Chained Equations (MICE): Implementation in Stata," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 45(i04).
    30. Crane, N.T. & Lewis, C.J. & Yetley, E.A., 1992. "Do time trends in food supply levels of macronutrients reflect survey estimates of macronutrient intake?," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 82(6), pages 862-866.
    31. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Gee Hee Hong, 2015. "The Cyclicality of Sales, Regular and Effective Prices: Business Cycle and Policy Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 993-1029, March.
    32. Darius Lakdawalla & Tomas Philipson & Jay Bhattacharya, 2005. "Welfare-Enhancing Technological Change and the Growth of Obesity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 253-257, May.
    33. repec:pri:cepsud:234kaplan is not listed on IDEAS
    34. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst, 2005. "Consumption versus Expenditure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 919-948, October.
    35. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2013. "Time Use during the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1664-1696, August.
    36. Dowler, Elizabeth A. & Seo, Young Ok, 1985. "Assessment of energy intake : Estimates of food supply v measurement of food consumption," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 278-288, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Biroli, Pietro & Boneva, Teodora & Raja, Akash & Rauh, Christopher, 2022. "Parental beliefs about returns to child health investments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(1), pages 33-57.
    2. Martina Celidoni & Chiara Dal Bianco & Vincenzo Rebba & Guglielmo Weber, 2020. "Retirement and Healthy Eating," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 199-219, March.
    3. Biondi, Beatrice & Castiglione, Concetta & Mazzocchi, Mario, 2021. "Demand drivers and changes in food-related emissions in the UK: A decomposition approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    4. Jan Marcus & Thomas Siedler & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2022. "The Long-Run Effects of Sports Club Vouchers for Primary School Children," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 128-165, August.
    5. Stephanie von Hinke, 2022. "Education, Dietary Intakes and Exercise," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(1), pages 214-240, February.
    6. Rachel Griffith, 2022. "Obesity, Poverty and Public Policy," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(644), pages 1235-1258.
    7. repec:lic:licosd:41519 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Dolton, Peter J. & Tafesse, Wiktoria, 2022. "Childhood obesity, is fast food exposure a factor?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    9. Thai H. Le & Marta Disegna & Tim Lloyd, 2023. "National Food Consumption Patterns: Converging Trends and the Implications for Health," EuroChoices, The Agricultural Economics Society, vol. 22(1), pages 66-73, April.
    10. Diarmaid Ó Ceallaigh & Kirsten I.M. Rohde & Hans van Kippersluis, 2024. "Skipping your workout, again? Measuring and understanding time inconsistency in physical activity," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 24-028/V, Tinbergen Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rachel Griffith & Martin O'Connell & Kate Smith, 2016. "Shopping Around: How Households Adjusted Food Spending Over the Great Recession," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(330), pages 247-280, April.
    2. Rachel Griffith & Wenchao (Michelle) Jin & Valérie Lechene, 2022. "The decline of home‐cooked food," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(2), pages 105-120, June.
    3. Alois Stutzer & Armando N. Meier, 2016. "Limited Self‐control, Obesity, and the Loss of Happiness," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(11), pages 1409-1424, November.
    4. Charles J. Courtemanche & Joshua C. Pinkston & Christopher J. Ruhm & George L. Wehby, 2016. "Can Changing Economic Factors Explain the Rise in Obesity?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(4), pages 1266-1310, April.
    5. Georgia S. Papoutsi & Andreas C. Drichoutis & Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr., 2013. "The Causes Of Childhood Obesity: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 743-767, September.
    6. Peter J. Huckfeldt & Darius N. Lakdawalla & Tomas J. Philipson, 2012. "Economics of Obesity," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Pieroni, L. & Salmasi, L., 2014. "Fast-food consumption and body weight. Evidence from the UK," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 94-105.
    8. Dragone, Davide & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2015. "Economic Development, Novelty Consumption, and Body Weight: Evidence from the East German Transition to Capitalism," IZA Discussion Papers 8967, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Cawley, John, 2015. "An economy of scales: A selective review of obesity's economic causes, consequences, and solutions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 244-268.
    10. Dragone, D. & Ziebarth, N.R., 2015. "Non-Separable Time Preferences and Novelty Consumption: Theory and Evidence from the East German Transition to Capitalism," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 15/28, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    11. Dragone, Davide & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2017. "Non-separable time preferences, novelty consumption and body weight: Theory and evidence from the East German transition to capitalism," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 41-65.
    12. Giuntella, Osea & Rieger, Matthias & Rotunno, Lorenzo, 2020. "Weight gains from trade in foods: Evidence from Mexico," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    13. Vincenzo Atella & Joanna Kopinska, 2011. "Body weight of Italians: the weight of Education," CEIS Research Paper 189, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 23 Mar 2011.
    14. Tafreschi, Darjusch, 2015. "The income body weight gradients in the developing economy of China," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 115-134.
    15. Pedro Gomis-Porqueras & Oscar Mitnik & Adrian Peralta-Alva & Maximilian D. Schmeiser, 2011. "The Effects of Female Labor Force Participation on Obesity," Working Papers 2011-16, University of Miami, Department of Economics.
    16. Cherchye, Laurens & De Rock, Bram & Griffith, Rachel & O’Connell, Martin & Smith, Kate & Vermeulen, Frederic, 2020. "A new year, a new you? Within-individual variation in food purchases," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    17. Charles Courtemanche & Garth Heutel & Patrick McAlvanah, 2015. "Impatience, Incentives and Obesity," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(582), pages 1-31, February.
    18. Claudio Michelacci & Andrea Pozzi & Luigi Paciello, 2018. "The extensive margin of aggregate consumption demand," 2018 Meeting Papers 1008, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Shu Ng & Edward Norton & David Guilkey & Barry Popkin, 2012. "Estimation of a dynamic model of weight," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 413-443, April.
    20. Chavas, Jean-Paul, 2013. "On the microeconomics of food and malnutrition under endogenous discounting," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 80-96.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jeurec:v:14:y:2016:i:6:p:1253-1286. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.