A new N.B.E.R. working paper finds a link between health insurance and obesity, and suggests that the better insured you are, the fatter you’re likely to be. We already knew that people with health insurance consume more healthcare resources than the uninsured; it appears they’re consuming more calories, too. [%comments]
Getting Fat? Maybe It's Your Health Insurance
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What a strange conclusion.
Wouldn’t the more obvious connections be that:
1. People who have more money (i.e., are in a position to get better health insurance) eat out more often, and get the attendant calorie boost?
2. People who work for government (great insurance) tend to be lower-income, and eat more-affordable, less-healthy options?
Maybe because in the US, insured people are employed people? Employed people tend to have more money to spend on food and dining out.
Umm, correlation != causation. It seems most likely that the explanation comes from the insured being wealthier and the wealthier buying more food. Right?
On the other hand, I seem to recall once reading that the relationship between money and obesity was negative, so who knows.
That makes sense. People with health insurance are those who are employed in a company that gives reasonable benefits to its employees or have their own businesses and can afford a health insurance. That also means under most cases they can afford what they would like to eat and that includes food with high calories served in restaurants and fast foods. People with no insurance are usually poor and unlikely to afford restaurants and fast foods, hence consuming less calories.
Maybe its because the demographic most likely to opt out of insurance is the young male, aged 18 to 30. People gain weight as they ge.
I find this study somewhat puzzling, having been able to compare the difference between the type of food available for people with more vs. less means (at least in a metropolitan area).
I used to live in East Village, NYC. There I had plenty of grocery stores and a Whole Foods store where to buy fresh fruit and all types of healthy (and relatively expensive) food that isn’t too caloric.
Then I moved to Washington Heights (top North of Manhattan), and the options completely changed: the local grocery stores only had white bread (not the multigrain that is recommended by nutritionists), artificial juices full of corn syrup, very little options on fruits, and so on.
In the U.S., contrary to Brazil, where I am from, nutritious, non-fattening food, is typically much more expensive than food that is full of empty calories, fat and additives (cakes, cookies, hot dogs, etc.). The people in the neighborhood I moved to definitely looked heavier, and to me it was no wonder considering the type of food they are consuming.
Sure, and this is why Americans with their crappy health care system are so super slim, and Europeans with excellent public health care systems are well known for their obesity…
Just “eating out” would not necessarily cause weight gain-
Assuming having health insurance stems from having better jobs, indicating more education, (higher SES) you are more likely to make better food choices for yourself and your family no matter where you choose to eat. These people are also more likely to afford gym memberships.
Lower income, uninsured people would probably buy less healthy foods, (they are often less expensive) and be more likely to eat fast food places as a choice of “dining out.”
I’m with #7. Correllation does not equal causation.