The Economics of Excess: Addiction, Indulgence, and Social Policy by Harold Winter

Author:Harold Winter [Winter, Harold]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, General, Decision-Making & Problem Solving, Political Science, Public Policy, Social Policy
ISBN: 9780804761482
Google: VkKHuQAACAAJ
Goodreads: 12711606
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2011-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

Division of Labor in Food Preparation

Another technological development that might have led to increased obesity rates has to do with how meals are prepared (Cutler, Glaeser, and Shapiro, 2003). Before the 1970s most meals were prepared at home, often from scratch. That is, cooking at home was fairly labor intensive, and it wasn’t unusual for cooking preparation and cleanup time to take a couple of hours. But tremendous technological advancements from the 1970s on greatly reduced the time spent cooking and eating. Such innovations included vacuum packing, deep freezing, improved preservatives, artificial flavors, and microwave ovens. As the time cost of meal preparation falls, we expect the number of meals to increase, whether or not calories per meal increase. Furthermore, a larger variety of food items may be more accessible than ever before. Both of these effects may lead to increased calorie intake and, as a result, increased obesity rates.

The authors support this explanation by examining a few implications of their theory. First, they find that food items with large amounts of commercial preparation have increased in consumption between 1970 and 1999, while food items with less commercial preparation have fallen in consumption during the same time. Snack foods represent the greatest increase in calorie intake; they are usually highly densely caloric (that is, high in calories per pound). Easily accessible snack foods mean people eat more often during the day and consume more calories, and obesity rates increase.

Further support for this explanation comes from examining the demographic group predicted to be most affected by the reduction in food preparation costs—women. Women have been most affected by the reduction in meal preparation time, and it is women who have seen the greatest increase in BMI. But even without partitioning the data by gender, the authors find that for each 30 minutes’ reduction in meal preparation time, BMI increases on average approximately 0.5 points.

Finally, international comparisons further support this explanation for the change in obesity rates. Countries that have not embraced the technological innovations to the extent that other countries have, have seen smaller changes in obesity rates. For example, Italians have been much less enthused about microwave cooking, with only about 14 percent of Italian households owning a microwave, compared to 80 percent of American households. Obesity rates in Italy are far lower than those rates in the United States. Countries with stricter pesticide and preservative food regulations than the United States also tend to have lower obesity rates. The authors believe that their explanation not only has strong commonsense appeal but also nicely fits the available data.

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