Race, Obesity, and the Puzzle of Gender Specificity

Abstract: Obesity is significantly more prevalent among non‐Hispanic African‐American (henceforth “black”) women than among non‐Hispanic white American (henceforth “white”) women. These differences have persisted without much alteration since the early 1970s, despite substantial increases in the rates of obesity among both groups. Over the same time period, however, we observe little to no significant differences in the prevalence of obesity between black men and white men. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) pertaining to the past two decades, we evaluate an extensive list of potential explanations for these patterns, including race and gender differences in economic incentives, in body size ideals, and in biological factors. We find that the gaps in mean BMI and in obesity prevalence between black women and white women do not narrow substantially after controlling for educational attainment, household income, occupation, location, and marital status—nor do such controls eliminate the gender‐specificity of racial differences in obesity. Following these results, we narrow down the list of explanations to two in particular, both of which are based on the idea that black women (but not also black men) face weaker incentives than white women to avoid becoming obese; one explanation involves health‐related incentives, the other, sociocultural incentives. While the data show qualified support for both explanations, we find that the socio‐ cultural incentives hypothesis has the potential to reconcile a greater number of stylized facts. JEL Classifications: D11, I12, J15, Z13 Mary A Burke is a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Frank Heiland is an assistant professor of economics at Florida State University. Their email addresses are, respectively, [email protected] and [email protected]. This paper, which may be revised, is available on the web site of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston at http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/wp/index.htm. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston or the Federal Reserve System. We are grateful for the comments of seminar and session participants at the Brookings Institution, Florida State University, Clark University, the Southern Economic Association meetings, the Western Economic Association International Meetings, and the North American Econometric Society summer meetings. In particular, we want to thank Peyton Young, Carol Graham, Ethan Cohen‐Cole, Damon Centola, and Robin Simon for helpful discussions and suggestions. For research assistance we thank Carl Nadler, Sarita Frattaroli, and the staff of the research library at the Boston Federal Reserve. All errors are our own.