The study found that the link between weight loss and wealth gains was particularly strong among white women. Black women and white men also gained
wealth as they lost weight, but not as much as did white women. The wealth of Black men was basically unaffected by their weight.
There's no way to tell from the data whether losing weight was the reason for the gain in wealth, but the linkage was definitely there, said Jay Zagorsky, author of the study and a research scientist at Ohio State University's Center for Human Resource Research.
"The typical person who loses or gains a few pounds had almost no change in wealth, but those who lost or gained large amounts of weight had a more dramatic change," Zagorsky said.
For example, white women who dropped their body mass index score (BMI) a standard measure of obesity by 10 points saw a wealth increase of $11,880. White men saw an increase of $12,720 for a similar drop, while black women increased wealth by $4,480.
The study appears online in the "Articles in Press" section of the journal Economics and Human Biology.
The study used data involving about 7,300 people who participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which is funded primarily by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The NLSY is a nationally representative survey of people nationwide conducted by Ohio State 's Center for Human Resource Research.
The same people are interviewed repeatedly, giving Zagorsky the opportunity to see how the obesity levels and wealth of respondents changed over time. Zagorsky used data from 12 NLSY surveys conducted between 1985 and 2000 All the respondents were between 21 and 28 years old in 1985.
Using each respondent's height and weight figures, Zagorsky was able to calculate their BMI scores. Scores u
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Contact: Jay Zagorsky
Zagorsky.1@osu.edu
Ohio State University
5-Jul-2005