title: Obesity and health-related decisions: An empirical model of the determinants of weight status across the transition from adolescence to young adulthood.
abstract: We estimate a structural dynamic model of the determinants of obesity. In addition to including many of the well-recognized endogenous factors mentioned in the literature as obesity determinants, we also model the individual's residential location as a choice variable, which is the main contribution of this paper to the literature. This allows us to control for an individual's self-selection into communities that possess the types of amenities in the built environment, which in turn affect their obesity-related behaviors such as physical activity (PA) and fast food consumption. We specify reduced form equations for a set of endogenous demand decisions, together with an obesity structural equation. The whole system of equations is jointly estimated by a semi-parametric full information log-likelihood method that allows for a general pattern of correlation in the errors across equations. Our model predicts a reduction in adult obesity of 7 percentage points as a result of a continued high level PA from adolescence into adulthood; a reduction of 0.7 (3) percentage points in adult obesity as a result of one standard deviation reduction in weekly fast food consumption for women (men); and a reduction of 0.02 (0.05) in adult obesity as a result of one standard deviation change in several neighborhood amenities for women (men). Another key finding is that controlling for residential self-selection has substantive implications. To our knowledge, this has not been yet documented within a full information maximum likelihood framework.
authors.affiliation: Banco de la República, Colombia. Electronic address: lmoralzu@banrep.gov.co.
authors.forename: Leonardo Fabio
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Morales
authors.affiliation: Dept of Nutrition Carolina Population Center, United States. Electronic address: pglarsen@unc.edu.
authors.forename: Penny
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gordon-Larsen
authors.affiliation: Dept of Economics Carolina Population Center, United States. Electronic address: dguilkey@email.unc.edu.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Guilkey
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight; D002755:Choice Behavior; D015444:Exercise; D057140:Fast Foods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012737:Sex Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Health production; Public health; Urban analysis