| Increasing attention to the health consequences of obesity---roughly 400,000 individuals die annually of obesity related disease with an associated cost of ;The first chapter examines the controversial question of whether greater availability of fast-food leads to weight gain. Using the number of interstate exits in a county as an instrumental variable to generate exogenous cross-sectional variation, I find a ten percent increase in the number of restaurants from the mean increases BMI by .33 points---1.05kg for a male 1.78m and .88kg for a female 1.64m. The results are robust to the selection criteria for counties and inclusion of controls for exercise and consumption of fruits and vegetables.;The second chapter introduces an augmented model of household production that allows for joint production when food is an input into meals and weight-maintenance, a specific form of health capital. Whereas the decision of what and where to eat depended only on the relative strengths of the income and substitution effects in models without joint production, adjustments to a change in the marginal value of time now depend on: which meal type has fewer calories; the relative time-costs of preparing each meal; the responsiveness of meal quality to procurement time; and whether changes in eating behavior are more efficient than exercise in lowering net calories.;The third paper in the dissertation attempts to disentangle the intensive effect of working fewer hours from the extensive effect of not working at all in the retirement-aged population. Using the CAMS supplement to the HRS, I find that individuals who increased the number of hours worked had higher expenditures on groceries and allocate less time to meal preparation at home. Similarly, they have higher expenditures on meals outside the home, while allocating less time to eating out. Up to two-thirds of the changes in meal production seen at retirement can be attributed to the pure intensive effect of working less. |
