Economic Origins of Dietary Diseases: Is Obesity becoming a Middle Income Problem?

Abstract

Obesity resembles a typical negative economic externality to the public health system. Previous literature identifies a positive connection between national income levels and incidence of obesity. Due to changes in globalization of food culture and media, food habits are spreading rapidly over the country borders from high into middle income countries. Due to these developments, association of obesity with high income is questionable. We pursue this research question using cross-country data from 2013 by modeling obesity-related dietary health outcomes in terms of linear and nonlinear income effects. Additional control variables include within-country income inequality and region fixed effects. Departing from the linear trends in the literature, the model results show statistically significant nonlinear effects of income. However, these effects are small in magnitude.