Social interactions and the contemporaneous determinants of individuals’ weight

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Abstract
Obesity and overweight are central issues in the public health debate in most developed countries. In this debate, some of the socio-economic determinants of obesity and overweight are still relatively unexplored. This paper presents an empirical examination of the possible influence of social interactions on contemporaneous obesity and (over)underweight. A joint estimation model for obesity and self-image is applied to a sample for Spain taken from the European Union household panel for 1998. The results suggest that obesity might be in part a social phenomenon connected to individuals’ social life.

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