Bao Ying, Osborne Matthew, Wang Emily, Jaenicke Edward C
Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana and Champaign, 1206 S 6th Street, Champaign, IL 61822, USA.
Department of Management, University of Toronto Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6, Canada.
PNAS Nexus. 2024 Jun 11;3(6):pgae190. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae190. eCollection 2024 Jun.
We examine the relationship between BMI and food purchase behavior using a unique dataset that links individual-level food purchases to health data. We find that individuals with higher BMI are significantly more sensitive to price changes in vice categories but do not show similar sensitivity in comparable nonvice categories. We rely on past literature that defines and identifies vice categories as those that are tempting and purchased impulsively. We explore the effectiveness of a 10% price increase on vice food categories, a hypothetical policy similar in spirit to a fat tax or sugar tax. We predict that such a tax would substantially reduce consumption of these foods, and would be particularly effective in reducing consumption by individuals with higher BMI.
我们使用一个独特的数据集来研究体重指数（BMI）与食品购买行为之间的关系，该数据集将个人层面的食品购买与健康数据联系起来。我们发现，BMI较高的个体对不良品类的价格变化更为敏感，但在可比的非不良品类中却没有表现出类似的敏感性。我们依据以往的文献，将不良品类定义并识别为那些具有诱惑性且冲动购买的品类。我们探讨了对不良食品品类提价10%的有效性，这一假设政策在本质上类似于脂肪税或糖税。我们预测，这样的税收将大幅减少这些食品的消费，并且对减少BMI较高个体的消费尤为有效。
