Document Type
Journal Article
Abstract
My paper, Levy (2002), highlighted the difference between the physiologically optimalweight and the rational (expected lifetimeutility maximizing) weight. Its main proposition was that, despite the adverse effect of overweightness on survival, the steady-state weight of a rational person exceeds the physiologically optimal weight. The steady-state level of overweightness is positively related to the individual’s elasticity of utility with respect to food consumption and to the individual’s rate of time-preferences, but negatively related to the individual’s rate of burning calories and to the rate of decline of the individual’s probability of survival.
RIS ID
29166
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