Limited Self-control, Obesity, and the Loss of Happiness

Health Economics
Alois Stutzer, Armando N Meier

Abstract

Is obesity the consequence of an optimally chosen lifestyle or do people consume too much relative to their long-term preferences? The latter perspective accepts that people might face self-control problems when exposed to the immediate gratification from food. We exploit unique survey data for Switzerland in multinomial logit and ordered probit regressions to study (i) the covariates of obesity including indicators of self-control and (ii) the consequences of obesity on the subjective well-being of people with limited willpower. Our main finding is that obesity decreases the well-being of individuals who report having limited self-control, but not otherwise. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Citations

Oct 30, 2015·Journal of Health Economics·Reto Odermatt, Alois Stutzer
Jun 28, 2016·Contemporary Clinical Trials·Koen van der SwaluwHenriëtte M Prast
Sep 15, 2018·Health Economics·Holger Strulik
Feb 11, 2019·Health Economics·Olivier Bargain, Jinan Zeidan
Feb 9, 2017·Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience·Alexander SoutschekPhilippe N Tobler
Nov 27, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Qëndresa RramaniBernd Weber
Feb 4, 2021·Journal of Public Economics·Pol Campos-MercadeErik Wengström

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