Adding Biomeasures Relating to Fatness and Obesity to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics

dc.contributor.author	Cawley, John
dc.date.accessioned	2010-06-10T19:16:52Z
dc.date.available	2010-06-10T19:16:52Z
dc.date.issued	2009
dc.description.abstract	The pace of research on the causes and consequences of obesity has increased dramatically since the late 1990s. However, a great chasm exists between the high-quality measurements of fatness used in the medical literature and the mostly self-reported height and weight data found in social science surveys. This article discusses the scientific value of including more accurate measures of fatness in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). It describes why fatness and obesity are of interest to PSID users, the concepts they measure, the strengths and weaknesses of alternative biomeasures for these concepts, the value added of including each in the PSID, and their synergies with the PSID structure. Although no single measure of fatness is ideal for every situation, given scarce PSID resources we recommend adding waist circumference, percentage of body fat, total body fat, and fat free mass through a method such as bioelectrical impedance analysis, as well as determining genetic predisposition to obesity.	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Economics and Human Biology, 2009, 7(3): 307-318.	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1813/15085
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.subject	Policy Analysis and Management	en_US
dc.title	Adding Biomeasures Relating to Fatness and Obesity to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics	en_US
dc.type	article	en_US

Files

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1