Atlantic Cities' Derek Thompson looks at John Cawley's article -- "The Economics of Obesity" -- in the NBER reporter. Although this is still a case of looking for obesity in all the wrong places, the article is interesting for what it doesn't answer. The chart that the Pew Research Center put together that looks at the prevalence of obesity by income shows just how complex this topic is.
Equally murky is whether being poor leads to obesity. Cawley's own research didn't quite find causality (there is "little evidence that income affects weight," he writes).
Still, there is copious evidence around the world that obesity is a peculiar condition for poor people in rich countries. Less-developed countries have lower obesity, but in richer countries, there tends to be an inverse relationship between waistlines and bank accounts. It's what researchers have called the "health-wealth" effect: Wealthier people tend to be healthier people. In the U.S., rich white women and poor black men have the lowest obesity rates (followed by rich white guys). America's highest obesity rates by far are among poor minority women. A 2008 U.S. Department of Agriculture's review of the effect of food stamps found obesity didn't rise among children or men but did increase slightly among women.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2014/01/where-does-obesity-come/8114/
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