IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bwp/bwppap/19013.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Double burden of malnutrition: Why are Indian women likely to be underweight and obese?

Author

Listed:
  • Vani S. Kulkarni
  • Veena S. Kulkarni
  • Raghav Gaiha

Abstract

India has one of the highest underweight burdens in the world, with signs of rising obesity. Coexistence of underweight and overweight women is symptomatic of the double burden of malnutrition. The present study aims to throw new light on the double burden of malnutrition among Indian women in the age group 22-49 years. The analysis is based on a nationally representative household survey, India Human Development Survey, 2005. The results indicate that the factors underlying this burden include socio-economic status (SES), location, marital status, age, education, physical activity, media exposure, and dietary composition and frequency of eating. We find that there is a socio-economic patterning of underweight and overweight women, with a large concentration of underweight women among those with a low SES and of overweight women among high SES. Given that the health implications of being underweight and overweight are grim, it is imperative that there is a simultaneous increase in the focus on the health needs of overweight and obese people and on the needs of the large number of severely undernourished people in society. For Indian women, the glaring health/nutrition disparities are matched only by the grimness of their existence and survival prospects.

Suggested Citation

  • Vani S. Kulkarni & Veena S. Kulkarni & Raghav Gaiha, 2013. "Double burden of malnutrition: Why are Indian women likely to be underweight and obese?," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 19013, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    • Handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:19013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/gdi/publications/workingpapers/bwpi/bwpi-wp-19013.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raghav Gaiha & Nidhi Kaicker & Katsushi Imai & Vani S. Kulkarni & Ganesh Thapa, 2012. "Has Dietary Transition Slowed Down in India: An analysis based on 50th, 61st and 66th Rounds of NSS," ASARC Working Papers 2012-07, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
    2. Ruhm, Christopher J., 2012. "Understanding overeating and obesity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 781-796.
    3. Osmani, Siddiq & Sen, Amartya, 2003. "The hidden penalties of gender inequality: fetal origins of ill-health," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 105-121, January.
    4. Daniel J Corsi & Jocelyn E Finlay & S V Subramanian, 2011. "Global Burden of Double Malnutrition: Has Anyone Seen It?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(9), pages 1-13, September.
    5. repec:pri:rpdevs:deaton_height_health_inequality_revised_ack_jan08.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Raghav Gaiha1 & Ganesh Thapa & Katsushi Imai & Vani S. Kulkarni, 2007. "Disparity, Deprivation and Discrimination in Rural India," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 1307, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    7. Wilson, Sven E., 2012. "Marriage, gender and obesity in later life," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 431-453.
    8. Marion Devaux & Franco Sassi & Jody Church & Michele Cecchini & Francesca Borgonovi, 2011. "Exploring the Relationship Between Education and Obesity," OECD Journal: Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2011(1), pages 1-40.
    9. Burkhauser, Richard V. & Cawley, John, 2008. "Beyond BMI: The value of more accurate measures of fatness and obesity in social science research," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 519-529, March.
    10. Webbink, Dinand & Martin, Nicholas G. & Visscher, Peter M., 2010. "Does education reduce the probability of being overweight?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 29-38, January.
    11. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Schultz, T Paul, 1982. "Market Opportunities, Genetic Endowments, and Intrafamily Resource Distribution: Child Survival in Rural India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(4), pages 803-815, September.
    12. Desai, Sonalde & Dubey, Amaresh & Joshi, Brij Lal & Sen, Mitali & Sharif, Abusaleh & Vanneman, Reeve, 2010. "Human Development in India: Challenges for a Society in Transition," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198065128.
    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. Toshiaki Aizawa, 2019. "Transition of the BMI distribution in India: evidence from a distributional decomposition analysis," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 3-36, April.

    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. 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.
    2. Böckerman, Petri & Vainiomäki, Jari, 2013. "Stature and life-time labor market outcomes: Accounting for unobserved differences," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 86-96.
    3. Susan L. Averett, 2019. "Obesity and labor market outcomes," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-32, August.
    4. Savelyev, Peter A. & Ward, Benjamin C. & Krueger, Robert F. & McGue, Matt, 2022. "Health endowments, schooling allocation in the family, and longevity: Evidence from US twins," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    5. Tushar Agrawal, 2014. "Gender and caste-based wage discrimination in India: some recent evidence [Geschlecht und Kaste-ansässige Lohndiskriminierung in Indien: Einige Neue Beweise]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 47(4), pages 329-340, December.
    6. Roland Pongou, 2020. "Is Excess (Fe)Male Mortality Caused by the Prenatal Environment, Child Biology, or Parental Discrimination? New Evidence from Male-Female Twins," Working Papers 2008E Classification-I15,, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    7. Kim, Young-Joo, 2016. "The long-run effect of education on obesity in the US," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 100-109.
    8. Daniel Grossman & John Cawley & Damien de Walque, 2018. "Effect of Stress on Later‐Life Health: Evidence from the Vietnam War Draft," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 142-165, July.
    9. Courtemanche, Charles & Tchernis, Rusty & Ukert, Benjamin, 2018. "The effect of smoking on obesity: Evidence from a randomized trial," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 31-44.
    10. Ruhm, Christopher J., 2012. "Understanding overeating and obesity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 781-796.
    11. Pagan, Ricardo & Haro, Carmen Ordóñez de & Sánchez, Carlos Rivas, 2016. "Obesity, job satisfaction and disability at older ages in Europe," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 42-54.
    12. Gulay Avsar & Roger Ham & W. Kathy Tannous, 2017. "Modelling Gender Differences in the Economic and Social Influences of Obesity in Australian Young People," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-12, March.
    13. Gulay Avsar & Roger Ham & W. Kathy Tannous, 2017. "Factors Influencing the Incidence of Obesity in Australia: A Generalized Ordered Probit Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-13, February.
    14. Giorgio Brunello & Daniele Fabbri & Margherita Fort, 2013. "The Causal Effect of Education on Body Mass: Evidence from Europe," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 195-223.
    15. Hyeain Lee & Rosemary Ahn & Tae Hyun Kim & Euna Han, 2019. "Impact of Obesity on Employment and Wages among Young Adults: Observational Study with Panel Data," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-12, January.
    16. Pongou, Roland, 2008. "Twin Estimates of the Effects of Prenatal Environment, Child Biology, and Parental Bias on Sex Differences in Early Age Mortality," MPRA Paper 103491, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 May 2010.
    17. Heather Brown, 2016. "Birds of a Feather Flock Together: Correlation in BMI Categories in Long-Term Relationships," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 49(4), pages 453-470, December.
    18. 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).
    19. 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.
    20. 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.

    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:bwp:bwppap:19013. 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: Rowena Harding (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wpmanuk.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.