Unhealthy eating and health awareness: evidence from restaurant visitors using consumers' cell phone geo-location data

Unhealthy eating is a serious public health issue that continues to burden the U.S. health system. But, due to data limitations, most extant research lacks a direct explanation of unhealthy eating behaviour. Using data compiled from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Census' American Commu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inApplied economics letters Vol. 30; no. 19; pp. 2774 - 2778
Main Authors Zhao, HaiYue, Banerjee, Tannista
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Routledge 11.11.2023
Taylor & Francis LLC
Subjects
Censuses
Chronic illnesses
Consumers
Eating behavior
Economic analysis
education
Habits
health
Healthy food
Mobile phones
Obesity
Patrons
Public health
Socioeconomic factors
unhealthy eating
Visitors
Weight gain
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Summary:Unhealthy eating is a serious public health issue that continues to burden the U.S. health system. But, due to data limitations, most extant research lacks a direct explanation of unhealthy eating behaviour. Using data compiled from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Census' American Community Survey, SafeGraph mobile device ping data, and web-scraped restaurant characteristics, we examine the relationships between restaurant characteristics, socioeconomic characteristics, health awareness, and the number of patrons at unhealthy eating establishments in the United States. Results obtained through various alternative empirical models confirm the effect of health awareness on unhealthy eating habits. This study adds to a growing literature which study people's eating behaviour related to weight gain along with other chronic diseases. The results point to important policy implications for mitigating obesity and reducing unhealthy eating.
ISSN:1350-4851
1466-4291
DOI:10.1080/13504851.2022.2107162