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Food away from home expenditures and obesity among older Europeans: are there gender differences?

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Abstract

Older people (i.e., at least 50 years of age) are becoming one of the most important demographic groups in the world. We explore the effect of food away from home expenditures on obesity among the older population in Europe using instrumental variable methods. Several statistical tests were conducted to assess endogeneity of selected variables, the exogeneity, relevance, and validity of instruments used. Our results generally suggest that food-away-from-home expenditure has no statistically significant effect on body mass index (BMI) of older males but is negatively related to BMI of older females.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Ioannina, University Campus, 45110, Ioannina, Greece

    Andreas C. Drichoutis

  2. Department of Agricultural Economics & Agribusiness, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, USA

    Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr.

  3. Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Development, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, 11855, Athens, Greece

    Panagiotis Lazaridis

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  1. Andreas C. Drichoutis
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  2. Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr.
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  3. Panagiotis Lazaridis
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Correspondence to Andreas C. Drichoutis.

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Drichoutis, A.C., Nayga, R.M. & Lazaridis, P. Food away from home expenditures and obesity among older Europeans: are there gender differences?. Empir Econ 42, 1051–1078 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-011-0453-4

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