Does Air Pollution Cause Obesity? New Evidence from China

Abstract

The global obesity rate has risen at an alarming rate in recent decades, and “fatness” has become an increasingly serious public health problem. At the same time, the loss of working hours and increased medical costs caused by air pollution have a wide range of direct and indirect effects on the health of the population and the macroeconomy. Against this background, using data from the China Family Panel Survey (CFPS) and thermal inversion as instrumental variables, this study analyzes the effect of air pollution on the risk of obesity among residents. We employ a two-stage least squares method to identify the effects of air pollution on the risk of obesity. The findings indicate that for a 1 μg/m³ increase in the annual average PM_2.5 concentration at the county level, the obesity level increases significantly by 0.0286. This result is credible after a series of robustness checks; male groups, less-educated groups, and rural residents are more sensitive to the negative effects of air pollution. Finally, policy suggestions are provided.

Received: 5 February 2023 | Revised: 20 April 2023 | Accepted: 7 May 2023

Conflicts of Interest

Guanglai Zhang and Yayun Ren are editorial board members for Green and Low-Carbon Economy, and were not involved in the editorial review or the decision to publish this article. The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.