Are the Slimmer More Wasteful? The Correlation between Body Mass Index and Food Wastage among Chinese Youth

With the economic growth and living standard improvement, food waste has become increasingly common among Chinese youth. To test whether body size affects performance of youth, we examined university students as representative youth conducted a large-sample survey in 29 universities across provinces. Based on 9192 questionnaires collected from college canteens, found that was correlated with waste. The smaller mass index (BMI) value, higher likelihood plate waste, amount ratio Heterogeneity analyses revealed BMI exerted more significant impact males than females, well substantial northerners southerners. Robust tests using other proxies to measure size, robust regressions based new adjusted samples, an instrumental variable overcome endogenous issue suggested slimmer participants tended be wasteful. Hence, this study confirms tend leave per capita meal. This is first attempt analyze wastage perspective China our best knowledge, it provides unique viewpoint for understanding young people’s wastage.