Julie S. Downs and George Loewenstein, “Behavioral Economics and Obesity.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Social Science of Obesity, John Cawley, editor, 2011.
• The rise in obesity is hard to explain via rational choice: think of the huge expenditures on failed diets and exercise programs, for instance. “Informational” interventions, such as better calorie information, might be fairly limited in terms of combatting obesity, then.
• One cannot take a zero tolerance approach towards food; also, people have a habit of understating their consumption, or simply forgetting about snacks.
• It doesn’t seem as if an increase in discount rates spurred the obesity rise, because discount rates have not risen, even though obesity is concentrated among those with higher discount rates. And present bias seems more applicable to food than it does to other types of decisions.
• The future health costs of a bad diet are intangible, and for a single meal, negligible. Any one dietary indiscretion is (metaphorically) peanuts, but routinely neglecting these indiscretions – the “peanuts effect” – can lead to obesity and serious harm.
• Field studies don’t show much improvement in calorie reduction from posting calorie counts. A decrease in consumption in one meal can be offset by later meals.
• The rise in obesity tracks the rise in restaurant serving sizes fairly closely.
• The rise in obesity is hard to explain via rational choice: think of the huge expenditures on failed diets and exercise programs, for instance. “Informational” interventions, such as better calorie information, might be fairly limited in terms of combatting obesity, then.
• One cannot take a zero tolerance approach towards food; also, people have a habit of understating their consumption, or simply forgetting about snacks.
• It doesn’t seem as if an increase in discount rates spurred the obesity rise, because discount rates have not risen, even though obesity is concentrated among those with higher discount rates. And present bias seems more applicable to food than it does to other types of decisions.
• The future health costs of a bad diet are intangible, and for a single meal, negligible. Any one dietary indiscretion is (metaphorically) peanuts, but routinely neglecting these indiscretions – the “peanuts effect” – can lead to obesity and serious harm.
• Field studies don’t show much improvement in calorie reduction from posting calorie counts. A decrease in consumption in one meal can be offset by later meals.
• The rise in obesity tracks the rise in restaurant serving sizes fairly closely.
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