Background A key component of ‘obesogenic environments’ is the ready availability of convenient, calorie-dense foods, in the form of hyper-palatable and relatively inexpensive ultra-processed products. Compelling evidence indicates that the regular consumption of soft drinks, specifically carbonated and non-carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), has a significant impact on the prevalence of overweight and obesity. However, to implement country-level effective prevention programmes we need to supplement this evidence with quantitative knowledge of the relationships between overweight/obesity and the main determinants of SSB consumption, notably SSB prices and consumers’ disposable income. Method Affordability considers the simultaneous effects of both price and disposable income on the buying decision. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of SSB affordability on the consumers’ purchasing behaviour and weight-related health outcomes. Our study was divided into three parts. First, we computed SSB consumption and affordability for approximately 150 countries worldwide. Second, we estimated a demand function for SSBs to assess the impact of affordability on consumption at the country level. Third, we used a multivariate regression model and country data on the prevalence of overweight and obesity to test the role of SSB affordability in the current obesity epidemic. Results The analysis reveals that SSB affordability: 1) showed both a large variability across countries and a clear tendency to increase substantially with the level of economic development; 2) played a key role in determining cross-country differences in the amount of soft drink consumed per capita; and 3) was significantly associated with the prevalence rates of both overweight and obesity. Specifically, we show that a 10 % increase in SSB affordability was associated, on average, with approximately 0.4 more overweight/obese adults per 100 inhabitants. Conclusions By controlling for the main possible confounding factors, our results clearly indicate that affordability is a major driver of purchasing behaviours and is significantly associated with the prevalence rates of both overweight and obesity. We thus suggest a fiscal approach to curb SSB consumption based on the effectiveness of ‘soda taxes’ to affect the long-term dynamic of SSB affordability. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12992-019-0474-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Nowadays, obesity and being overweight are among the major global health concerns. Many, diet-related diseases impose high tangible and intangible costs, and threaten the sustainability of health-care systems worldwide. In this study, we model, at the macroeconomic level, the impact of energy intake from different types of carbohydrates on the population’s BMI (body mass index). We proceed in three steps. First, we develop a framework to analyse both the consumption choices between simple and complex carbohydrates and the effects of these choices on people health conditions. Second, we collect figures for 185 countries (over the period 2012–2014) regarding the shares of simple (sugar and sweetener) and complex (cereal) carbohydrates in each country’s total dietary energy supply. Third, we use regression techniques to: (1) estimate the impact of these shares on the country’s prevalence of obesity and being overweight; (2) compute for each country an indicator of dietary pattern based on the ratio between simple and complex carbohydrates, weighted by their estimated effects on the prevalence of obesity and being overweight; and (3) measure the elasticity of the prevalence of obesity and being overweight with respect to changes in both carbohydrate dietary pattern and income per capita. We find that unhealthy eating habits and the associated prevalence of excessive body fat accumulation tend to behave as a ‘normal good’ in low, medium- and high-HDI (Human Development Index) countries, but as an ‘inferior good’ in very high-HDI countries.

In this paper we examine some basic stylized facts of economic growth according to the modern restatement of the classical theory of income distribution. In particular, we make use of a wage–profit frontier in order to explore the patterns of technical change experienced by a set of 18 industrialized economies, during the last 40 years. Our main purpose is to document the evolution of technical change. Using empirical evidence from the Italian industry, we also make an attempt to provide an explanation to data from a classical perspective, alternative to the standard approach founded on the aggregate production function.fossil production function, Marx‐biased technical change, wage–profit rate schedule, E11, O40, O52,

Background Understanding how the development of obesogenic food environments and the consumption of ultra-processed foods and beverages influence each other can help policymakers to identify effective ways to curb the current obesity epidemic. This paper was designed to investigate whether, and to what extent, the consumption of soft drinks and the prevalence of obesity are linked through feedback effects. Methods An ecological study design and a simultaneous equation model were used to investigate the existence of a vicious cycle between the consumption of soft drinks and the prevalence of obesity. The analysis was based on a longitudinal dataset covering per capita sales of soft drinks, the age-standardised prevalence rate of obesity and several demographic and socio-economic control variables in a sample of 98 countries worldwide for the period 2005–2019. Results Using a Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) regression model with fixed effects, we documented a self-reinforcing process that links consumption and obesity. Changes in the spread of obesity were associated with changes in soft drink consumption: a one-unit increase in the age-adjusted prevalence rate of obesity increased consumption by about 2.39 l per person per year. Similarly, as the consumption of soft drinks rose, so did the prevalence of obesity: the age-adjusted rate of obesity increased by 0.07% for every additional litre consumed per capita. Computing the impact multipliers, we found that the outcome of a one-unit decrease in the average price of soft drinks was twofold: a) the prevalence of obesity increased by around 0.17%; and b) consumption increased by around 2.40 l per person, the sum of the increase directly caused by the price reduction (2 l) and the increase due to the interplay between consumption and obesity (0.4 l). Conclusions This study has identified a feedback loop between unhealthy habits (i.e. the consumption of soft drinks) and health outcomes (i.e. the prevalence of obesity). This interplay amplifies the impact of any exogenous changes in the determinants of consumption and obesity. These feedback effects should be considered and exploited in planning effective strategies to tackle the burden of obesity and the global epidemic of non-​communicable diseases.

YesNon-communicable diseases (NCDs) are currently the leading cause of\ud death worldwide. In this paper, we examine the channels through which economic\ud growth affects NCDs’ epidemiology. Following a production function approach, we\ud develop a basic technique to break up the impact of economic growth on NCDs into\ud three fundamental components: (1) a resource effect; (2) a behaviour effect; and (3)\ud a knowledge effect. We demonstrate that each of these effects can be measured as\ud the product of two elasticities, the output and income elasticity of the three leading\ud factors influencing the frequency of NCDs in any population: health care, healthrelated\ud behaviours and lifestyle, and medical knowledge.Gol

In the current global economy, chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have become the leading cause of death and a major health concern for both developed and developing countries. Among other factors, the worldwide spread of NCDs is driven by the globalisation of unhealthy habits. The purpose of this paper is to develop a simple statistic to measure, at the national level, the average population’s exposure to the main NCDs modifiable risk factors. The approach and methodology followed by the United Nations Development Programme to compute the Human Development Index (HDI) is applied to four basic indicators of NCD-related preventable risk factors (alcohol consumption, excess caloric intake, non-balanced diet and tobacco use) in 112 countries worldwide in 2012–14. We obtain a summary composite index, which we call the Unhealthy Behaviour Index (UBI), which ranks countries by the average level of the unhealthy habits (drinking, eating and smoking) of their populations. We find that Belarus and Russian federation are the two countries with the unhealthiest NCD-related lifestyle. With the exception of Canada, the first twenty populations more exposed to the main NCDs preventable risk factors all live in European countries, and mainly in countries of Eastern Europe. Overall, the UBI tends to increase along with the level of human development. In medium, high and very high HDI countries, however, the same level of human development may be associated with very different kinds of NCD-related lifestyles. Finally, economic growth may push populations toward either more unhealthy or healthy habits, depending on the countries’ level of development; the elasticity of unhealthy habits with respect to income per capita is positive (but less than one: on average 0.6) until $30,000, decreases as income rises, and becomes negative (around -0.3) in very high income countries.

The misery index (the unweighted sum of unemployment and inflation rates) was probably the first attempt to develop a single statistic to measure the level of a population’s economic malaise. In this letter, we develop a dynamic approach to decompose the misery index using two basic relations of modern macroeconomics: the expectations-augmented Phillips curve and Okun’s law. Our reformulation of the misery index is closer in spirit to Okun’s idea. However, we are able to offer an improved version of the index, mainly based on output and unemployment. Specifically, this new Okun’s index measures the level of economic discomfort as a function of three key factors: (1) the misery index in the previous period; (2) the output gap in growth rate terms; and (3) cyclical unemployment. This dynamic approach differs substantially from the standard one utilised to develop the misery index, and allow us to obtain an index with five main interesting features: (1) it focuses on output, unemployment and inflation; (2) it considers only objective variables; (3) it allows a distinction between short-run and long-run phenomena; (4) it places more importance on output and unemployment rather than inflation; and (5) it weights recessions more than expansions

The impact of soft drinks on obesity has been widely investigated during the last decades. Conversely, the role of obesity as a factor influencing the demand for soft drinks remains largely unexplored. However, understanding potential changes in the demand for soft drinks, as a result of changes in the spread of obesity, may be useful to better design a comprehensive strategy to curb soft drink consumption. In this paper, we aim to answer the following research question: Does the prevalence of obesity affect the demand for soft drinks? For this purpose, we collected data in a sample of 97 countries worldwide for the period 2005–2019. To deal with problems of reverse causality, an instrumental variable approach and a two-stage least squares method were used to estimate the impact of the age-standardized obesity rate on the market demand for soft drinks. After controlling for several demographic and socio-economic confounding factors, we found that a one percent increase in the prevalence of obesity increases the consumption of soft drinks and carbonated soft drinks by about 2.37 and 1.11 L per person/year, respectively. Our findings corroborate the idea that the development of an obesogenic food environment is a self-sustaining process, in which obesity and unhealthy lifestyles reinforce each other, and further support the need for an integrated approach to curb soft drink consumption by combining sugar taxes with bans, regulations, and nutrition education programs.