Working Paper: NBER ID: w14337
Authors: David G. Blanchflower; Andrew J. Oswald; Bert Van Landeghem
Abstract: If human beings care about their relative weight, a form of imitative obesity can emerge (in which people subconsciously keep up with the weight of the Joneses). Using Eurobarometer data on 29 countries, this paper provides cross-sectional evidence that overweight perceptions and dieting are influenced by a person's relative BMI, and longitudinal evidence from the German Socioeconomic Panel that well-being is influenced by relative BMI. Highly educated people see themselves as fatter -- at any given actual weight -- than those with low education. These results should be treated cautiously, and fixed-effects estimates are not always well-determined, but there are grounds to take seriously the possibility of socially contagious obesity.
Keywords: Obesity; Relative Utility; BMI; Well-being; Social Comparisons
JEL Codes: D01; I12; I31
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| education (I29) | self-perception of weight (D91) |
| relative BMI (C46) | self-perception of being overweight (D91) |
| well-being (I31) | life satisfaction (I31) |
| education (I29) | BMI (I12) |
| social comparisons (C92) | BMI (I12) |
| relative BMI (C46) | life satisfaction (I31) |
| BMI (I12) | well-being (I31) |