LSE Health, Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics, CESifo & CAEPS, London, UK.
Soc Sci Med. 2010 Apr;70(8):1185-93. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.12.011. Epub 2010 Feb 10.
This paper examines the influence of environmental factors on weight gain and obesity. We take advantage of a markedly different pattern of obesity between Italy in Spain to undertake a non-linear decomposition analysis of differences in the prevalence of overweight and obesity between the two countries. The analysis is based on cross-sectional national surveys for 2003. We have attempted to isolate the influence of lifestyle factors, socio-economic and socio-environmental effects in explaining cross-country differences in BMI status. Our findings suggest that when the social environment (proxied by different measures of peer effects and regional BMI) is not controlled for, we explain about 27-42% of the overall Spain-to-Italy overweight and obesity gap. Differences in eating habits and education between the two countries are the main predictors of the gaps in obesity and overweight. However, when social environment is controlled for, our estimates explain between 76 and 92% of the obesity and overweight gap and the effect of eating habits are wiped out. These results suggest healthy body weight depends on cultural or environmental triggers that operate through individual level health production determinants.
本文考察了环境因素对体重增加和肥胖的影响。我们利用意大利和西班牙之间明显不同的肥胖模式，对这两个国家之间超重和肥胖流行率的差异进行非线性分解分析。该分析基于 2003 年的横断面全国调查。我们试图分离生活方式因素、社会经济和社会环境影响，以解释 BMI 状况的国家间差异。我们的研究结果表明，当不控制社会环境（由同伴效应和区域 BMI 的不同衡量标准来表示）时，我们可以解释西班牙和意大利之间大约 27-42%的超重和肥胖差距。两国之间的饮食习惯和教育差异是肥胖和超重差距的主要预测因素。然而，当控制社会环境时，我们的估计可以解释肥胖和超重差距的 76%至 92%，而饮食习惯的影响则消失了。这些结果表明，健康的体重取决于通过个体健康生产决定因素起作用的文化或环境触发因素。
