CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis and TIER, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.
J Health Econ. 2010 Jan;29(1):29-38. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2009.11.013. Epub 2009 Nov 26.
The prevalence of overweight and obesity is growing rapidly in many countries. Education policies might be important for reducing this increase. This paper analyses the causal effect of education on the probability of being overweight by using longitudinal data of Australian identical twins. The data include self-reported and clinical measures of body size. Our cross-sectional estimates confirm the well-known negative association between education and the probability of being overweight. For men we find that education also reduces the probability of being overweight within pairs of identical twins. The estimated effect of education on overweight status increases with age. Remarkably, for women we find no negative effect of education on body size when fixed family effects are taken into account. Identical twin sisters who differ in educational attainment do not systematically differ in body size. Peer effects within pairs of identical twin sisters might play a role.
在许多国家，超重和肥胖的患病率正在迅速增长。教育政策可能对减少这种增长很重要。本文利用澳大利亚同卵双胞胎的纵向数据，分析了教育对超重概率的因果影响。这些数据包括身体大小的自我报告和临床测量。我们的横断面估计证实了教育与超重概率之间的负相关关系。对于男性，我们发现教育也降低了同卵双胞胎个体中超重的概率。教育对超重状态的影响估计随着年龄的增长而增加。值得注意的是，当考虑固定家庭效应时，我们发现教育对女性体型没有负面影响。教育程度不同的同卵双胞胎姐妹在体型上没有系统差异。同卵双胞胎姐妹之间的同伴效应可能发挥了作用。
