Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Epidemiology and Population Health

The impact of rising food prices on obesity in women: a longitudinal analysis of 31 low-income and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2014

International Journal of Obesity volume 43, pages 774–781 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Objectives

To examine whether changes in food prices are associated with changes in obesity prevalence among women in developing countries, and assess effect modification by individual socioeconomic status (SES).

Methods

Longitudinal study of country-level food price inflation temporally and geographically linked to anthropometric data on non-pregnant adult women (n = 295,984) in 31 low-income and middle-income countries over the 2000–2014 time period, using separate multivariable multilevel growth models of five SES indicators. Post-estimation analysis computed the relationship between food price inflation and predicted mean probabilities of being obese, by SES.

Results

Rising food price inflation was strongly associated with women’s obesity prevalence, and SES consistently modified the relationship. Regardless of indicator used, higher food price inflation was positively associated with obesity among women in top SES categories, but was flat or negative among women in low SES categories, averaging over time. The SES differences were widest across educational strata and were most pronounced when food price inflation was highest. Overall, for every 1-unit increase in food price inflation, predicted mean obesity prevalence was between 0.02 and 0.06 percentage points greater in women of high SES compared to low SES women.

Conclusion

There is a strong link between food price inflation and obesity in adult women in developing countries which is clearly modified by individuals’ SES. Greater food price inflation was associated with greater obesity prevalence only among women in higher SES groups, who may be net food buyers most at risk of obesity in low-income and middle-income countries.

Key points

  • This is the first longitudinal study specifically examining the impact of rising food prices on health across different social groups and countries.

  • Our study uses a robust multilevel model for change, with national food price inflation data linked to individual-level anthropometric and socioeconomic data between 2000 and 2014.

  • We found food price inflation was positively linked to obesity in women of high SES, but no associations in other groups, and potential further modification by country income group.

  • Study results are threatened by residual confounding from unavailable country and individual factors.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Abegunde DO, Mathers CD, Adam T, Ortegon M, Strong K. The burden and costs of chronic diseases in low-income and middle-income countries. Lancet. 2007;370:1929–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Miller V, Yusuf S, Chow CK, Dehghan M, Corsi DJ, Lock K, et al. Availability, affordability, and consumption of fruits and vegetables in 18 countries across income levels: findings from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study. Lancet Glob Health. 2016;4:e695–703.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Green R, Cornelsen L, Dangour AD, Turner R, Shankar B, Mazzocchi M, et al. The effect of rising food prices on food consumption: systematic review with meta-regression. BMJ. 2013;346:f3703.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Nandy S, Daoud A, Gordon D. Examining the changing profile of undernutrition in the context of food price rises and greater inequality. Soc Sci Med. 2016;149:153–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Iannotti L, Robles M. Negative impact on calorie intake associated with the 2006-08 food price crisis in Latin America. Food Nutr Bull. 2011;32:112–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Powell LM, Chaloupka FJ. Food prices and obesity: evidence and policy implications for taxes and subsidies. Milbank Q. 2009;87:229–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Sturm R, Patel D, Alexander E, Paramanund J. Seasonal cycles in food purchases and changes in BMI among South Africans participating in a health promotion programme. Public Health Nutr. 2016;19:1–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Jones NR, Conklin AI, Suhrcke M, Monsivais P. The growing price gap between more and less healthy foods: analysis of a novel longitudinal UK dataset. PLoS ONE. 2014;9:e109343.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Burns C, Sacks G, Gold L. Longitudinal study of Consumer Price Index (CPI) trends in core and non‐core foods in Australia. Aust NZ J Public Health. 2008;32:450–3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Headey, Derek D., and William J. Martin. The impact of food prices on poverty and food security. Annual review of resource economics. 2016;8:329–351.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Cornelsen L, Green R, Turner R, Dangour AD, Shankar B, Mazzocchi M, et al. What happens to patterns of food consumption when food prices change? Evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis of food price elasticities globally. J Health Econ. 2015;24:1548–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Wiig K, Smith C. The art of grocery shopping on a food stamp budget: factors influencing the food choices of low-income women as they try to make ends meet. Public Health Nutr. 2009;12:1726–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Darmon N, Ferguson EL, Briend A. A cost constraint alone has adverse effects on food selection and nutrient density: an analysis of human diets by linear programming. J Nutr. 2002;132:3764–71.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Smith, Trenton G, Christiana Stoddard, and Michael G, Barnes. Why the poor get fat: weight gain and economic insecurity. Forum for Health Economics & Policy. De Gruyter, 2009;12.

  15. UN Committee on World Food Security. Price Volatility and Food Security. United Nations Technical Report: Geneva, Switzerland; 2011.

  16. Gregory CA, Coleman-Jensen A. Do high food prices increase food insecurity in the United States? Appl Econ Perspect Policy. 2013;35:679–707.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Daoud A. (Quasi) scarcity and global hunger: a sociological critique of the scarcity postulate with an attempt at synthesis. J Crit Realism. 2007;6:199–225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Daoud A. Synthesizing the Malthusian and Senian approaches on scarcity: a realist account. Camb J Econ. 2018;42:453–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Dhurandhar EJ. The food-insecurity obesity paradox: a resource scarcity hypothesis. Physiol Behav. 2016;162:88–92.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Daoud A, Halleröd B, Guha-Sapir D. What is the association between absolute child poverty, poor governance, and natural disasters? A global comparison of some of the realities of climate change. PLoS ONE. 2016;11:e0153296.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Mackenbach JD, Brage S, Forouhi NG, Griffin SJ, Wareham NJ, Monsivais P. Does the importance of dietary costs for fruit and vegetable intake vary by socioeconomic position? Br J Nutr. 2015;114:1464–70.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Kurosaki T. Wages in kind and economic development: their impacts on labor supply and food security of rural households in developing countries. Japan: Institute of Economic Research: Hitotsubashi University; 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Conklin AI. Gender, diet quality and obesity: economic and social determinants, and their interactions, in older adults. PhD. Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge; 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Singer JD, Willett JB. Applied longitudinal data analysis: Modeling change and event occurrence. Oxford University Press, New York, NY; 2003.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  25. Davies HTO, Crombie IK, Tavakoli M. When can odds ratios mislead? BMJ. 1998;316:989–91.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Tajeu GS, Sen B, Allison DB, Menachemi N. Misuse of odds ratios in obesity literature: an empirical analysis of published studies. Obesity. 2012;20:1726–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Norton EC, Dowd BE. Log odds and the interpretation of logit models. Health Serv Res. 2018;53:859–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Allen L, Williams J, Townsend N, Mikkelsen B, Roberts N, Foster C, et al. Socioeconomic status and non-communicable disease behavioural risk factors in low-income and lower-middle-income countries: a systematic review. Lancet Glob Health. 2017;5:e277–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Centre for Economic Policy Research. Food prices and rural poverty. CEPR: London, UK; 2010.

  30. Von Braun J. Rising food prices: what should be done? Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute; 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Hadley C, Stevenson EG, Tadesse Y, Belachew T. Rapidly rising food prices and the experience of food insecurity in urban Ethiopia: impacts on health and well-being. Soc Sci Med. 2012;75:2412–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Rummo PE, Meyer KA, Howard AG, Shikany JM, Guilkey DK, Gordon-Larsen P. Fast food price, diet behavior, and cardiometabolic health: differential associations by neighborhood SES and neighborhood fast food restaurant availability in the CARDIA study. Health Place. 2015;35:128–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Meyer KA, Guilkey DK, Ng SW, Duffey KJ, Popkin BM, Kiefe CI, et al. Sociodemographic differences in fast food price sensitivity. JAMA Intern Med. 2014;174:434–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Vellakkal S, Fledderjohann J, Basu S, Agrawal S, Ebrahim S, Campbell O, et al. Food price spikes are associated with increased malnutrition among children in Andhra Pradesh, India. J Nutr. 2015;145:1942–9.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  35. Arndt C, Hussain MA, Salvucci V, Osterdal LP. Effects of food price shocks on child malnutrition: The Mozambican experience 2008/2009. Econ Human Biol. 2016;22:1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Conklin AI, Ponce NA, Crespi CM, Frank J, Nandi A, Heymann J. Economic policy and the double burden of malnutrition: cross-national longitudinal analysis of minimum wage and women’s underweight and obesity. Public Health Nutr. 2018;21:940–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Ponce N, Shimkhada R, Raub A, Daoud A, Nandi A, Richter L, Heymann J. The association of minimum wage change on child nutritional status in LMICs: A quasi-experimental multi-country study. Global public health. 2017;3:1–5.

  38. Roser M. Food Prices. In: OurWorldInData.org, 2016.

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate statistical support and expertise from the UCLA IDRE Statistical Consulting Group. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for this feedback to improve the manuscript.

Author contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AIC, AD, RS, NP. Performed the experiments: AIC. Analyzed the data: AIC, AD, RS, NP. Wrote the first draft: AIC. Contributed to the final paper: AIC, AD, RS, NP. All authors approved the final version.

Funding

The authors received no specific funding for this project. AIC acknowledges previous salary support from the CHIR Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (MFE-135520).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Collaboration for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Annalijn I. Conklin

  2. Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences, Providence Healthcare Research Institute, St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver, Canada

    Annalijn I. Conklin

  3. WORLD Policy Analysis Center, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, USA

    Annalijn I. Conklin

  4. Centre for Population and Development Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA

    Adel Daoud

  5. Center for Health Policy Research, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, USA

    Riti Shimkhada & Ninez A. Ponce

  6. Center Global and Immigrant Health, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, USA

    Ninez A. Ponce

  7. Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, USA

    Ninez A. Ponce

Authors
  1. Annalijn I. Conklin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Adel Daoud
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Riti Shimkhada
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Ninez A. Ponce
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Annalijn I. Conklin.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Electronic supplementary material

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Conklin, A.I., Daoud, A., Shimkhada, R. et al. The impact of rising food prices on obesity in women: a longitudinal analysis of 31 low-income and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2014. Int J Obes 43, 774–781 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-018-0178-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-018-0178-y

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links