Should you eat breakfast? Estimates from health production functions

This paper uses an econometric specification based on the health production function approach to examine the importance of lifestyles for adult health. The approach treats health practices such as eating breakfast, smoking, and exercise as inputs into the production of good health; several output measures are explored. The econometric models estimated with data from the 1985 Health Interview Survey show broad agreement with conventional wisdom about the importance of healthy lifestyles. This paper also investigates the role schooling plays in the production of good health. Schooling is found to be related to good health even after controlling for differences in observable health inputs. However, lack of support for a plausible specification of the productive efficiency hypothesis casts some doubt on the interpretation that schooling increases the efficiency of the household production of health.