Treats
Fast food, soft drink and candy intake is unrelated to body mass index for 95% of American adults
David Just & Brian Wansink
Obesity Science & Practice, December 2015, Pages 126–130
Methods: Using 2007–2008 Centers for Disease Control's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the consumption incidence of targeted foods on two non-continuous days was examined across discrete ranges of BMI. Data were analysed in 2011.
Results: After excluding the clinically underweight and morbidly obese, consumption incidence of fast food, soft drinks or candy was not positively correlated with measures of BMI. This was true for sweet snacks (r = 0.005, p = <0.001) and salty snacks (r = 0.001, p = 0.040). No significant variation was found between BMI subcategories in weekly consumption frequency of fast food meals.
Conclusions: For 95% of this study's sample, the association between the intake frequency of fast food, soft drinks and candy and BMI was negative. This result suggests that a strategy that focuses solely on these problem foods may be ineffective in reducing weight. Reducing the total calories of food eaten at home and the frequency of snacking may be more successful dieting advice for the majority of individuals.
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Overweight and obesity among Major League Baseball players: 1871–2015
David Conroy, Kathleen Wolin & Mercedes Carnethon
Obesity Research & Clinical Practice, September–October 2016, Pages 610–612
Abstract:
Professional athletes provide high-profile role models of health and human performance. Increased body mass can be adaptive for human performance but also presents a health threat. This paper examines 145 years of data on body mass in 17,918 male professional baseball players in the United States at the time of their professional debut. Both height and weight at debut have increased over time. Controlling for age at debut, players debuting in the current decade were significantly more likely to be overweight or obese than at any time in history. The prevalence of overweight and obesity increased to approximately 70% and 10%, respectively, while normal weight prevalence decreased from approximately 60% to 20% during that time. The causes of these changes over the past 25 years are not clear although they coincide with the steroid era. These trends warrant further attention because of the potential for adverse long-term health consequences in this population and those who perceive them as role models for health and human performance.
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‘Globesity’? The effects of globalization on obesity and caloric intake
Joan Costa-Font & Núria Mas
Food Policy, October 2016, Pages 121–132
Abstract:
We examine the effect of globalization, in its economic and social dimensions, on obesity and caloric intake, namely the so-called ‘globesity’ hypothesis. Our results suggest a robust association between globalization and both obesity and caloric intake. A one standard deviation increase in globalization is associated with a 23.8 percent increase in obese population and a 4.3 percent rise in calorie intake. The effect remains statistically significant even after using an instrumental variable strategy to correct for some possible reverse causality and ommited variable bias, a lagged structure, and corrections for panel standard errors. However, we find that the primary driver (of the ‘globesity’ phenomenon) is the ‘social’ rather than the ‘economic’ dimension of globalization, and specifically the effect of changes in ‘information flows’ and ‘social proximity’ on obesity. A one standard deviation increase in social globalization increased the percentage of obese population by 13.7 percent.
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Measuring Effects of SNAP on Obesity at the Intensive Margin
Lorenzo Almada & Rusty Tchernis
NBER Working Paper, September 2016
Abstract:
The effects of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on obesity have been the focus of much debate. However, causal interpretation of estimates from previous studies, comparing participants to non-participants, is complicated by endogeneity and possible misreporting of participation in SNAP. In this paper, we take a novel approach to examine quasi-experimental variation in SNAP benefit amount on adult obesity. Children of SNAP households qualify for free in-school meals, thus freeing some additional benefits for the household. A greater proportion of school-age children eligible for free in-school meals proxies for an exogenous increase in the amount of SNAP benefits available per adult. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979 we show that school meals represent a non-trivial part of the food budget for SNAP households. We find that increases in SNAP benefits have no effect on obesity levels for the full sample of those who report SNAP participation. To better isolate the effects of additional benefits from other potential changes we restrict our analysis to adults living in households with at least one child under 5 years of age. In this setting, we find that additional SNAP benefits reduce BMI and the probability of being obese for SNAP adults.
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Alma Guerrero et al.
Health Education & Behavior, forthcoming
Method. Data from the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children’s Health were analyzed to examine the relationship of daily exercise with children’s weight status. Propensity score covariate adjustment and multivariate logistic regression with survey weights were used to control for child, home, and community characteristics.
Results: Approximately 22% of all children ages 10 to 17 years engaged in daily exercise for at least 20 minutes. In the adjusted model for the entire sample, daily exercise was associated with children having a lower likelihood of being overweight or obese (odds ratio = 0.79; 95% confidence interval = 0.68-0.91). In a stratified analysis of the major racial and ethnic groups, however, while White children who exercised daily were found to have a lower odds of being overweight or obese (odds ratio = 0.70; 95% confidence interval = 0.60-0.82), this relationship was not found for most minority children.
Conclusions: Racial and ethnic minority children were not found to have the same weight status relationship with exercising daily. These findings suggest that some population-average exercise recommendations may not be as applicable to minority children.
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Rejecting Responsibility: Low Physical Involvement in Obtaining Food Promotes Unhealthy Eating
Linda Hagen, Aradhna Krishna & Brent McFerran
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Five experiments show that less physical involvement in obtaining food leads to less healthy food choices. We find that when participants are given the choice of whether or not to consume snacks that they perceive as relatively unhealthy, they have a greater inclination to consume these snacks when less (versus more) physical involvement is required to help themselves to the food; this is not the case for snacks that they perceive as relatively healthy. Further, when participants are given the opportunity to choose their portion size, they select larger portions of unhealthy foods when less (versus more) physical involvement is required to help themselves to the food; again, this is not the case for healthy foods. We suggest that this behavior occurs because being less physically involved in serving one's food allows participants to reject responsibility for unhealthy eating and thus to feel better about themselves following indulgent consumption. These findings add to the research on consumers' self-serving attributions and to the growing literature on factors that nudge consumers towards healthier eating decisions.
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Stand-Biased Versus Seated Classrooms and Childhood Obesity: A Randomized Experiment in Texas
Monica Wendel et al.
American Journal of Public Health, October 2016, Pages 1849-1854
Objectives: To measure changes in body mass index (BMI) percentiles among third- and fourth-grade students in stand-biased classrooms and traditional seated classrooms in 3 Texas elementary schools.
Methods: Research staff recorded the height and weight of 380 students in 24 classrooms across the 3 schools at the beginning (2011–2012) and end (2012–2013) of the 2-year study.
Results: After adjustment for grade, race/ethnicity, and gender, there was a statistically significant decrease in BMI percentile in the group that used stand-biased desks for 2 consecutive years relative to the group that used standard desks during both years. Mean BMI increased by 0.1 and 0.4 kilograms per meter squared in the treatment and control groups, respectively. The between-group difference in BMI percentile change was 5.24 (SE = 2.50; P = .037). No other covariates had a statistically significant impact on BMI percentile changes.
Conclusions: Changing a classroom to a stand-biased environment had a significant effect on students’ BMI percentile, indicating the need to redesign traditional classroom environments.
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Local Obesity Prevalence and Corporate Policies
Anup Agrawal & Yuree Lim
University of Alabama Working Paper, September 2016
Abstract:
Consistent with prior findings that obese individuals tend to be more risk-averse, we find that firms headquartered in areas with greater obesity prevalence adopt less risky corporate policies. Using a dataset of obesity prevalence in US counties, we find that the obesity rate in a county is related negatively to investment, growth and profitability, and positively to stock volatility, of firms located there. We use time-varying state taxes on ‘fatty foods’ and the density of fast food restaurants in a county as instruments for local obesity to examine a causal link between local obesity and corporate policies. We provide evidence that both local managers and shareholders appear to be channels through which obesity prevalence gets transmitted to the lower-risk policies of local firms. The mechanisms underlying this transmission appear to be education, health, race, and marital status. Finally, adding to the nature vs. nurture debate, both genetic and environmental factors appear to contribute to our findings.
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Impact of the Berkeley Excise Tax on Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption
Jennifer Falbe et al.
American Journal of Public Health, October 2016, Pages 1865-1871
Objectives: To evaluate the impact of the excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption in Berkeley, California, which became the first US jurisdiction to implement such a tax ($0.01/oz) in March 2015.
Methods: We used a repeated cross-sectional design to examine changes in pre- to posttax beverage consumption in low-income neighborhoods in Berkeley versus in the comparison cities of Oakland and San Francisco, California. A beverage frequency questionnaire was interviewer administered to 990 participants before the tax and 1689 after the tax (approximately 8 months after the vote and 4 months after implementation) to examine relative changes in consumption.
Results: Consumption of SSBs decreased 21% in Berkeley and increased 4% in comparison cities (P = .046). Water consumption increased more in Berkeley (+63%) than in comparison cities (+19%; P < .01).
Conclusions: Berkeley’s excise tax reduced SSB consumption in low-income neighborhoods. Evaluating SSB taxes in other cities will improve understanding of their public health benefit and their generalizability.
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Shuo Zhou, Michael Shapiro & Brian Wansink
Appetite, forthcoming
Abstract:
Media's presentation of eating is an important source of influence on viewers' eating goals and behaviors. Drawing on recent research indicating that whether a story character continues to pursue a goal or completes a goal can unconsciously influence an audience member's goals, a scene from a popular movie comedy was manipulated to end with a character continuing to eat (goal ongoing) or completed eating (goal completed). Participants (N = 147) were randomly assigned to a goal status condition. As a reward, after viewing the movie clip viewers were offered two types of snacks: ChexMix and M&M's, in various size portions. Viewers ate more food after watching the characters continue to eat compared to watching the characters complete eating, but only among those manipulated to identify with a character. Viewers were more likely to choose savory food after viewing the ongoing eating scenes, but sweet dessert-like food after viewing the completed eating scenes. The results extend the notion of media influence on unconscious goal contagion and satiation to movie eating, and raise the possibility that completing a goal can activate a logically subsequent goal. Implications for understanding media influence on eating and other health behaviors are discussed.
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Terese Sara Høj Jørgensen et al.
Obesity, October 2016, Pages 2240–2247
Methods: The study was based on a cohort of young men with data on weight, height, intelligence test score, and education from the Danish Conscription Database. In total, 346,500 men born 1939 to 1959 were followed until December 2013. The association between BMI and mortality was analyzed using Cox-regression models including interactions between BMI and height, intelligence, and education, respectively.
Results: BMI and mortality showed the U-shaped association from the start of the follow-up period, and it persisted through the subsequent 56 years. As expected, the mortality was inversely associated with height, intelligence, and education, but the U shape of the association between BMI and mortality was unaffected by the levels of these traits except at higher BMI values, where the slopes were steeper for men with higher levels of height, intelligence, and education.
Conclusions: High and low BMI was associated with higher mortality throughout life regardless of the levels of height, intelligence, and education.
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Self-identified Obese People Request Less Money: A Field Experiment
Antonios Proestakis & Pablo Brañas-Garza
Frontiers in Psychology, September 2016
Abstract:
Empirical evidence suggests that obese people are discriminated in different social environments, such as the work place. Yet, the degree to which obese people are internalizing and adjusting their own behavior as a result of this discriminatory behavior has not been thoroughly studied. We develop a proxy for measuring experimentally the “self-weight bias” by giving to both self-identified obese (n = 90) and non-obese (n = 180) individuals the opportunity to request a positive amount of money after having performed an identical task. Consistent with the System Justification Theory, we find that self-identified obese individuals, due to a preexisting false consciousness, request significantly lower amounts of money than non-obese ones. A within subject comparison between self-reports and external monitors' evaluations reveals that the excessive weight felt by the “self” but not reported by evaluators captures the self-weight bias not only for obese but also for non-obese individuals. Linking our experimental results to the supply side of the labor market, we argue that self-weight bias, as expressed by lower salary requests, enhances discriminatory behavior against individuals who feel, but may not actually be, obese and consequently exacerbates the wage gap across weight.
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Changzheng Yuan et al.
JAMA Pediatrics, forthcoming
Design, Setting, and Participants: A prospective cohort study was conducted from September 1, 1996, to December 31, 2012, among participants of the Growing Up Today Study, including 22 068 offspring born to 15 271 women, followed up via questionnaire from ages 9 to 14 through ages 20 to 28 years. Data analysis was conducted from October 10, 2015, to June 14, 2016.
Results: Of the 22 068 offspring (20 950 white; 9359 male and 12 709 female), 4921 individuals (22.3%) were born by cesarean delivery. The cumulative risk of obesity through the end of follow-up was 13% among all participants. The adjusted risk ratio for obesity among offspring delivered via cesarean birth vs those delivered via vaginal birth was 1.15 (95% CI, 1.06-1.26; P = .002). This association was stronger among women without known indications for cesarean delivery (adjusted risk ratio, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.09-1.54; P = .004). Offspring delivered via vaginal birth among women who had undergone a previous cesarean delivery had a 31% (95% CI, 17%-47%) lower risk of obesity compared with those born to women with repeated cesarean deliveries. In within-family analysis, individuals born by cesarean delivery had 64% (8%-148%) higher odds of obesity than did their siblings born via vaginal delivery.
Conclusions and Relevance: Cesarean birth was associated with offspring obesity after accounting for major confounding factors. Although additional research is needed to clarify the mechanisms underlying this association, clinicians and patients should weigh this risk when considering cesarean delivery in the absence of a clear indication.