Obesity under affluence varies by welfare regimes: the effect of fast food, insecurity, and inequality.

Auteur(s) :
Ulijaszek SJ., Offer A., Pechey R.
Date :
Déc, 2010
Source(s) :
ECON HUM BIOL. #8:3 p297-308
Adresse :
All Souls College, University of Oxford, High Street, Oxford, OX1 4AL, UK. [email protected]

Sommaire de l'article

Among affluent countries, those with market-liberal welfare regimes (which are also English-speaking) tend to have the highest prevalence of obesity. The impact of cheap, accessible high-energy food is often invoked in explanation. An alternative approach is that overeating is a response to stress, and that competition, uncertainty, and inequality make market-liberal societies more stressful. This ecological regression meta-study pools 96 body-weight surveys from 11 countries c. 1994-2004. The fast-food ‘shock’ impact is found to work most strongly in market-liberal countries. Economic insecurity, measured in several different ways, was almost twice as powerful, while the impact of inequality was weak, and went in the opposite direction.

Source : Pubmed
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