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Rational eating: can it lead to overweightness or underweightness?
1Department of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia. amnon_levy@uow.edu.au
Journal of Health Economics
|September 28, 2002
Abstract:
Although a deviation from the physiologically optimal weight increases the probability of dying, the steady state for an expected lifetime-utility maximiser is a state of overweightness. However, even a small initial deviation from this rationally stationary weight is followed by explosive oscillations. These oscillations might lead to severe and chronic underweightness in a late stage of life. In the presence of socio-cultural norms of appearance, the rationally stationary weight of fat people is lower than otherwise and the rationally stationary weight of lean people is greater than otherwise.