Uri Gneezy and Jason Shafrin's study is entitled: "Why Does Getting Married Make You Fat? Incentives and Appearance Maintenance."
The abstract says:
"Married individuals weight more on average than non-married individuals. We suggest that exiting the dating market decreases one’s incentive to maintain their appearance and thus leads to an increase in body weight. The paper uses a 13 year panel data set and exploits variation in the type of domestic relationship in order to pinpoint how exiting the dating market affects body weight. We find a positive correlation between the strength of the domestic relationships in terms of probability of termination and weight gain."
A couple of paragraphs from the study say:
"In this paper we test the appearance maintenance hypothesis empirically using a 13 year panel data set from the Netherlands. We exploit variation in the type of domestic relationships to see whether individuals in domestic relationships with a higher
probability of termination will gain less weight than those who enter into domestic relationships where the probability the relationship will terminate is lower. We find that individuals who enter into cohabitation relationships gain less weight than those who enter into traditional marriage relationships.
Further, we observe that having a child reduces the probability that a relationship terminates. The marginal impact of having a child decreases the probability a couple separates more for cohabitators and marriages with a prenuptial agreement than for couples in traditional marriages; traditional marriages already had a lower separation probability so the marginal effect of having a child is less than is the case for cohabitators or marriages with prenuptial agreements. As our theory predicts, married individuals with a prenuptial agreement gain more weight after having a child than would be the case when an individual in a traditional marriage has a child. For cohabitators the results are imprecise because fewer cohabitators have children than married couples. Overall, our results show a correlation between the probability a domestic relationship will terminate and subsequent weight gain.:
Read it all via Tyler Cowen blog, MR.
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6 comments:
Ha! Too funny.
And, somehow, I find it true quite often. Why do people stop taking care of themselves after they enter relationships.
I'd think that that is the time to keep it up, right?
Don't know what the stats are, but I agree with the premise. I suppose, the expectations are lowered when the product is bought.
Oh, but what happens when the products is returned?
Don't know what the stats are, but I agree with the premise. I suppose, the expectations are lowered when the product is bought.
Oh, but what happens when the products is returned?
Ha. funny!
I buy it. I guess that shows you how much we depend on other people to make us happy. I guess once we've sealed the deal, we figure we aren't in charge of taking care of ourselves anymore. I strive not to be like this, but I already know that in some ways I have given up parts of my self due to entering a long term relationship. For instance, I'm practically useless in the kitchen now, but I could get by when I was single.
I've always said: Watch your weight, exercise, take good care of your body(you only get one), dont do drugs, and try your best to live a healthy lifestyle. But what's most important...do it for YOU. not anyone else. If people did this, weight gain due to relationships would not be an issue.
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