Strulik Holger
University of Goettingen, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultaet, Platz der Goettinger Sieben 3, 37073 Goettingen, Germany.
J Health Econ. 2014 Jan;33:113-25. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2013.10.007. Epub 2013 Nov 11.
This paper proposes a theory for the social evolution of obesity. It considers a society in which individuals experience utility from consumption of food and non-food, the state of their health, and the evaluation of their appearance by others. The theory explains under which conditions poor persons are more prone to be overweight although eating is expensive and it shows how obesity occurs as a social phenomenon such that body mass continues to rise long after the initial cause (e.g. a lower price of food) is gone. The paper investigates the determinants of a steady state at which the median person is overweight and how an originally lean society arrives at such a steady state. Extensions of the theory towards dietary choice and the possibility to exercise in order to lose weight demonstrate robustness of the basic mechanism and provide further interesting results.
本文提出了一种关于肥胖的社会演变理论。它设想了这样一个社会，在其中个体从食物和非食物的消费、自身健康状况以及他人对其外表的评价中获得效用。该理论解释了在哪些情况下，尽管饮食成本高昂，但穷人更易超重，并且它还展示了肥胖作为一种社会现象是如何发生的，即即便最初的成因（如食品价格降低）消失后，体重仍会持续上升。本文研究了处于超重状态的中位数个体所在稳态的决定因素，以及一个原本体型偏瘦的社会是如何达到这样一种稳态的。该理论在饮食选择以及通过锻炼来减肥的可能性方面的拓展，证明了基本机制的稳健性，并得出了进一步有趣的结果。
