Imitative Obesity and Relative Utility
利用29国调查数据，发现人们会因在意相对体重而模仿他人肥胖，表现为感知超重和节食受相对BMI影响，且高学历者更易觉得自己胖。
If human beings care about their relative weight, a form of imitative obesity can emerge (in which people subconsciously keep up with the weight of the Joneses). Using Eurobarometer data on 29 countries, this paper provides cross-sectional evidence that overweight perceptions and dieting are influenced by a person's relative BMI, and longitudinal evidence from the German Socioeconomic Panel that well-being is influenced by relative BMI. Highly educated people see themselves as fatter-at any given actual weight-than those with low education. These results should be treated cautiously, and fixed-effects estimates are not always well determined, but there are grounds to take seriously the possibility of socially contagious obesity.