TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rashad,Inas
AU  - Grossman,Michael
AU  - Chou,Shin-Yi
TI  - The Super Size of America: An Economic Estimation of Body Mass Index and Obesity in Adults
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11584
PY  - 2005
Y2  - August 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11584
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11584.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Inas Rashad Kelly
Queens College, CUNY
Economics Department
300 Powdermaker Hall
65-30 Kissena Boulevard
Flushing, NY 11367
Tel: (718) 997-5440
E-Mail: Inas.Kelly@qc.cuny.edu

Michael Grossman
Ph.D. Program in Economics
City University of New York Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, 5th Floor
New York, NY  10016-4309
Tel: 212/817-7959
Fax: 212/817-1597
E-Mail: mgrossman@gc.cuny.edu

Shin-Yi Chou
Department of Economics
College of Business and Economics
Lehigh University
621 Taylor Street
Bethlehem, PA  18015-3117
Tel:  610/758-3444
Fax: NA
E-Mail: syc2@lehigh.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2005-08-29
AB  - The increased prevalence of obesity in the United States stresses the pressing need for answers as to why this rapid rise has occurred.  This paper employs micro-level data from the First, Second, and Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys to determine the effects that various state-level variables have on body mass index and obesity.  These variables, which include the per capita number of restaurants, the gasoline tax, the cigarette tax, and clean indoor air laws, display many of the expected effects on obesity and explain a substantial amount of its trend.  These findings control for individual-level measures of household income, years of formal schooling completed, and marital status.
ER  -