Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Avner Offer
Author-Workplace-Name: All Souls College, University of Oxford, OX1 4AL, UK
Author-Name: Rachel Pechey
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, OX2 6PE, UK
Author-Name: Stanley Ulijaszek
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, OX2 6PE, UK
Title: Obesity under affluence varies by welfare regimes: the effect of fast food, insecurity, and inequality
Abstract: Among affluent countries, those with market-liberal welfare regimes (which are also English-speaking) 
tend to have the highest prevalence of obesity. The impact of cheap, accessible high-energy food is often invoked in 
explanation. An alternative approach is that overeating is a response to stress, and that competition, uncertainty and 
inequality make market-liberal societies more stressful. This ecological regression meta-study pools 96 body-weight 
surveys from 11 countries c. 1994-2004. The fast-food ‘shock’ impact is found to work most strongly in market liberal 
countries. Economic insecurity, measured in several different ways, was almost twice as powerful, while the impact of 
inequality was weak, and went in the opposite direction.
X-Classification-JEL:
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Length: 28 pages
Creation-Date: 2010-07-15
Number: _082
File-URL: http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/materials/papers/4401/offer82.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:nuf:esohwp:_082