Why Have Americans Become More Obese? Essay Example

This article is exploring a question of substantial policy relevance: why are Americans getting fatter? The authors note that the fundamental problem is: the number of calories that Americans consume, particularly starting in the 1980s, increased substantially, while the number of calories expended remained relatively flat.  This increase in total calories is driving higher levels of BMI, but it does not explain why Americans are necessarily eating more calories. The authors posit that the reason Americans are eating more now compared to the past (e.g., 1960s) is due to technological change.  That is, the mass production of food outside the home, and the attendant decrease in prices versus the time costs of making food, made it more affordable for individuals to consume more calories at a lower cost.  This technological change in the production of food and individuals short-sighted consumption of an increased number of calories, is one major factor in explaining why Americans are increasingly obese.

The authors’ delineation of different welfare implications of lower food prices was the most interesting part of the paper.  That is,  standard microeconomic theory states that lower prices for a good will increase an individual’s number of options and make them better off.  However, in the case of lower food prices, it may lead some individuals to over consume unhealthy food that leads to obesity.  The inclusion of the argument related to self-control issues is important in that it tries to integrate basic economic theory with behavioral reality, or how individuals really act.  The conclusion that lower food prices may in fact be a “welfare loss” for certain (non) rational individuals is an interesting conclusion that also helps to explain the rationale behind emerging policy proposals such as the “soda tax” and “fast food tax.”

The technical changes described in the paper mean that the price of eating food produced outside of the house is cheaper.  Since the slope of the budget constraint would then change (the slope is equal to the price of food produced at home/ price of food produced outside the home), the line would change so that a consumer ate more food outside of the home for the equilibrium bundle.  Total food consumption would also increase because the individual is eating more food consumed outside the house at a lower price.

If these technological changes also changed the quality of food, they would change the convexity of the indifference curves.  In general, an indifference curve is convex because a consumer generally prefers variety; however, if the price change in goods leads to a reshuffling of preferences away variety, the indifference curve would shift to the good that is greater quality, leading to a flatter curve.

The money budget line would shift: This is because the budget to purchase food items is the same; however, food outside the home is cheaper, so an individual can seemingly eat the same amount of food (calories) at a lower price leaving more money and time for other activities.

The two main implications dealing with consumer behavior are: 1) that a reduction in food preparation should cause individuals to consume a more wide variety of food that would include snacks; 2) Consumption should increase the most for food items that experienced the largest time savings (a trade-off between food and time).

The consumer could make a choice to eat food that, although may have a higher “price” over the short-term, may have a lower price over the long-term in the case of an individual’s health.  The government could also contemplate policies that would “nudge” the individual to take consideration of long-term costs in their short-term consumption.