Inequality in body mass indices across countries: Evidence from convergence tests

Global Trends in Child Obesity: Are Figures Converging?

“…The overall conclusion is that the use of the PS methodology allows us to mostly reject the null hypothesis of convergence for children and adolescents, similar to the conclusions of previous papers on adults. Reference [25] found convergence among European countries, but not in the rest of the world. Reference [38] reject the null hypothesis of convergence for BMI growth rates among OECD countries.…”

“…The lower number of countries in Club 1, with the highest obesity rate, and the high concentration of countries in Club 2 may be related to the greater pressure women feel towards certain physical stereotypes, leading to greater homogenization towards an ideal body weight [39]. This could lead to a greater concentration among girls in terms of the number of convergence groups as occurs with adult women [25].…”

“…For this analysis, we have used those that commonly appear in the literature as risk factors associated with obesity. Duncan and Toledo [25] include a good review of these aspects. We include the following determinants in our analysis:…”

“…Although there are several works that analyze convergence using this methodology, they focus only on the adult population. Duncan and Toledo [25] and Kasman and Kasman [26] are worth mentioning in this regard. The first study analyses convergence of body mass index (BMI) in a sample of 172 countries, finding convergence only between groups of countries (three and six convergence clubs for adult female and male, respectively).…”

“…The relationship with respect to human capital is similar. Usually, higher human capital is associated with lower overweight problems [25]. However, some studies in developing countries find that a higher level of parental education is associated with a greater risk of children becoming overweight or obese [14].…”