Body mass index and income in Europe

There seems to be some variation in the strength of the effect, but overall the finding is that women with higher BMI (heavier for their height) tend to make less money than slimmer women.

Economics and Human Biology doi:10.1016/j.ehb.2009.01.006

Income and Body Mass Index in Europe

Jaume García Villar and Climent Quintana-Domeque

Abstract

The problem of obesity is alarming public health authorities around the world. Therefore, it is important to study its determinants. In this paper, we explore the empirical relationship between household income and body mass index (BMI) in nine European Union countries. Our findings suggest that, in general, the association is negative for women and nonexistent for men. Moreover, once we decompose household income into “own labor earnings” and “other household income”, we find that the different relationship for men and women appears to be driven by the negative relationship between BMI and “own labor earnings” for women.

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