Thinness and obesity: A model of food consumption, health concerns, and social pressure

Abstract

The increasing concern of the policy maker about eating behavior has focused on the spread of obesity and on the evidence of a consistent number of individuals dieting despite being underweight. As the latter behavior is often attributed to the social pressure to be thin, some governments have already taken actions to ban ultra-thin ideals and testimonials. Assuming that people are heterogeneous in their healthy weights, but are exposed to the same ideal body weight, this paper proposes a theoretical framework to assess whether increasing the ideal body weight is socially desirable, both from a welfare and from a health point of view. If being overweight is the average condition and the ideal body weight is thin, increasing the ideal body weight may increase welfare by reducing social pressure. By contrast, health is on average reduced, since people depart even further from their healthy weight. Given that in the US and in Europe people are on average overweight, we conclude that these policies, even when are welfare improving, may foster the obesity epidemic.JEL classification: D91, I18.

A triple test for behavioral economics models and public health policy

“…For example, Dragone and Savorelli (2012) investigate the effect of manipulating the norm level of body shape by legislations such as banning underweight fashion models. Of course, social psychologists have long recognized the significance of social interactions (e.g., Asch 1955;Bond and Smith 1996).…”

“…These BE models potentially add specific policy relevant predictions. For example, and following Dragone and Savorelli (2012), public health marketing policies to reduce the risk of anorexia may lead to negative health costs in terms of promoting obesity that more than offset the health benefits. Because of this, there is at least the potential for Test 1 to be passed, i.e., for insights to be provided that would not just be gleaned from non-BE research.…”

Body Weight, Dieting and Obesity Traps

“…Following Dragone and Savorelli (2011) we assume that there exists a satiation point for individual food consumption, denoted by c sat , with an associated level of body weight w sat , such that ∂U (c sat )/∂c = 0, which is to be interpreted as the (steady state) body weight that an agent would reach if she always ate to satiation 2 .…”

A Triple Test for Behavioral Economics Models and Public Health Policy

“…In self-esteem, moral and social scrutiny models, a norm level of behavior is exogenously given in a social group, and an individual loses utility if he or she is seen as deviating from the norm (for example, Battaglini et al, 2005;Etile, 2007;Dragone and Savorelli, 2012). Dragone and Savorelli (2012) assume that the desired level of body shape is determined by social environments, e.g.…”

“…Dragone and Savorelli (2012) assume that the desired level of body shape is determined by social environments, e.g. media and fashion industry.…”