IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/pharme/v33y2015i7p673-689.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Epidemiology of Obesity: A Big Picture

Author

Listed:
  • Adela Hruby
  • Frank Hu

Abstract

The epidemic of overweight and obesity presents a major challenge to chronic disease prevention and health across the life course around the world. Fueled by economic growth, industrialization, mechanized transport, urbanization, an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, and a nutritional transition to processed foods and high-calorie diets over the last 30 years, many countries have witnessed the prevalence of obesity in its citizens double and even quadruple. A rising prevalence of childhood obesity, in particular, forebodes a staggering burden of disease in individuals and healthcare systems in the decades to come. A complex, multifactorial disease, with genetic, behavioral, socioeconomic, and environmental origins, obesity raises the risk of debilitating morbidity and mortality. Relying primarily on epidemiologic evidence published within the last decade, this non-exhaustive review discusses the extent of the obesity epidemic, its risk factors—known and novel—, sequelae, and economic impact across the globe. Copyright Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Adela Hruby & Frank Hu, 2015. "The Epidemiology of Obesity: A Big Picture," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 33(7), pages 673-689, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:pharme:v:33:y:2015:i:7:p:673-689
    DOI: 10.1007/s40273-014-0243-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s40273-014-0243-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40273-014-0243-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cawley, John & Meyerhoefer, Chad, 2012. "The medical care costs of obesity: An instrumental variables approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 219-230.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Md. Alauddin Majumder, 2013. "Does Obesity Matter for Wages? Evidence from the United States," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 32(2), pages 200-217, June.
    2. Allais, Olivier & Etilé, Fabrice & Lecocq, Sébastien, 2015. "Mandatory labels, taxes and market forces: An empirical evaluation of fat policies," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 27-44.
    3. Courtemanche, Charles & Tchernis, Rusty & Zhou, Xilin, 2017. "Parental Work Hours and Childhood Obesity: Evidence Using Instrumental Variables Related to Sibling School Eligibility," IZA Discussion Papers 10739, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Bastian, Nathaniel D. & Swenson, Eric R. & Ma, Linlin & Na, Hyeong Suk & Griffin, Paul M., 2017. "Incentive contract design for food retailers to reduce food deserts in the US," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 87-98.
    5. Neuhofer, Zachary & McFadden, Brandon R. & Rihn, Alicia & Wei, Xuan & Khachatryan, Hayk & House, Lisa, 2020. "Can the updated nutrition facts label decrease sugar-sweetened beverage consumption?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    6. Johanna Catherine Maclean, 2016. "Does Leaving School in an Economic Downturn Persistently Affect Body Weight? Evidence from Panel Data," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 122-148, January.
    7. Zasimova, Liudmila, 2022. "The association between fast-food consumption and job-related factors among Russian adults," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    8. Cremer, Helmuth & Goulão, Catarina & Roeder, Kerstin, 2016. "Earmarking and the political support of fat taxes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 258-267.
    9. Nelson, John P., 2023. "Differential “progressibility” in human know-how: A conceptual overview," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(2).
    10. Costa-Font, Joan & Mas, Nuria & Navarro, Patricia, 2013. "Globesity: Is Globalization a Pathway to Obesity?," IESE Research Papers D/1057, IESE Business School.
    11. Abrahamsson, Sara & Bütikofer, Aline & Karbownik, Krzysztof, 2023. "Swallow This: Childhood and Adolescent Exposure to Fast Food Restaurants, BMI, and Cognitive Ability," CEPR Discussion Papers 18213, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Ralph Bradley & Colin Baker, 2013. "The Simultaneous Effects of Obesity, Insurance Choice, and Medical Visit Choice on Health Care Costs," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring and Modeling Health Care Costs, pages 211-240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. 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.
    14. Till Seuring & Olga Archangelidi & Marc Suhrcke, 2015. "The Economic Costs of Type 2 Diabetes: A Global Systematic Review," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 33(8), pages 811-831, August.
    15. Yves Arrighi & Fahariat Boukari & David Crainich, 2024. "Optimal combination of requirement and reward in financial incentive programs for weight loss," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 97(4), pages 685-706, December.
    16. Averett, Susan L. & Smith, Julie K., 2014. "Financial hardship and obesity," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 201-212.
    17. Crudu, Federico & Neri, Laura & Tiezzi, Silvia, 2021. "Family ties and child obesity in Italy," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    18. Costa, Dora L., 2023. "Overweight grandsons and grandfathers’ starvation exposure," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    19. Alessia CAVALIERE & Elisa DE MARCHI & Alessandro BANTERLE, 2013. "Time preference and health: the problem of obesity," Departmental Working Papers 2013-13, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    20. John Cawley & Alex Susskind & Barton Willage, 2020. "The Impact of Information Disclosure on Consumer Behavior: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment of Calorie Labels on Restaurant Menus," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 1020-1042, September.

    More about this item

    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:spr:pharme:v:33:y:2015:i:7:p:673-689. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.