Obesity and socioeconomic gradient

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Economics from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

This work project studies the determinants of body weight for Portuguese population with special incidence in the socioeconomic dimension through a comparison between 2006 and 2012. More specifically how is body weight influenced by a set of socioeconomic variables that may vary throughout the years. In other words, we set out to understand if socioeconomic status (SES) is a real contributor regarding weight. This study entails a thorough analysis of these variables with the intention of understand which of them remain significant and have real impact on the weight of a human body. Literature points to a confirmation of this real impact of SES status in the body weight and, according to our results, income represents the strongest variable to explain changes in human body weight, coinciding with previous findings. In quantitative terms, an increase of 250€ in the household net income for 2012 is translated into an increase of 0.272 in the BMI. Data used was provided by National Health Institute (INSA) along with National Institute of Statistics (INE) and also collected through a survey.