The Adjusted Measure of Body Mass Index for the Chinese and its Impact on Health

Tian Qiu

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of socio-economic status (SES) on the Body Mass Index (BMI), a formula based on the ratio of height to weight, linked to health, using a four-year (1991, 1993, 1997 and 2000) panel data set which comes from the Physical Examination in China Health and Nutrition Survey. To an extent we confirm the results with respect to the linkage between SES and the documented healthy BMI found for other developing countries. Furthermore, apart from using the existing specification of BMI, we develop a little further the issue on how to define BMI with respect to the adjustment of gender and age. This leads to a slightly different formulation for the BMI and a substantially different healthy range based on self-reported health. We also find that variables such as income can modify the impact of an adverse BMI on health.

Keywords: Body Mass Index; Health; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007, Revised 2009
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