Bittersweet: How prices of sugar-rich foods contribute to the diet-related disease epidemic in Mexico

I provide new evidence on how price changes of nutritionally similar foods, such as those rich in sugar or fats, change obesity and diet-related diseases in the context of Mexico between 1996–2010. I merge a bar-code level price dataset with product-specific nutritional composition to two datasets w...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of health economics 2021-12, Vol.80, p.102506-102506, Article 102506
Main Author: Gračner, Tadeja
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chronic illnesses
Commerce
Datasets
Diabetes
Diabetes mellitus (non-insulin dependent)
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2
Diet
Disease
Epidemics
Fats
Food
Health economics
Health status
Humans
Hypertension
Individual differences
Mexico
Mexico - epidemiology
Nutrients
Obesity
Panel data
Prices
Sugar
Sugars
Type 2 diabetes mellitus
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:I provide new evidence on how price changes of nutritionally similar foods, such as those rich in sugar or fats, change obesity and diet-related diseases in the context of Mexico between 1996–2010. I merge a bar-code level price dataset with product-specific nutritional composition to two datasets with health outcomes: state-level administrative and nationally representative individual-level panel data. Exploiting within-city variation in prices using fixed effects models, I show that decreased prices of sugar-rich foods increase obesity, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension prevalence; yet the prices of foods rich in other nutrients do not. Health responses to price changes are the largest for those abdominally obese or at the highest risk for chronic disease. The association between prices of sugary foods and chronic disease is meaningful: I estimate that in Mexico, price reductions of sugary foods explain roughly 15 percent of the rise in obesity and diabetes during the 15-year study period.
ISSN:0167-6296
1879-1646
DOI:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2021.102506