Winnie Fung, Business Economics PhD
Dissertation Chair: Professor David Cutler
Early Childhood Malnutrition and Adult Obesity: Evidence from the 1959-61 China Famine (Job Market Paper)
Developing countries today face the paradoxical dual burden of malnutrition and obesity. It has been hypothesized that early childhood malnutrition leads to a higher risk of adult obesity, though evidence is mixed. I study the health outcomes and health behaviors of 30 to 45-year-olds who were born during the 1959-61 China Famine. I find that women who as infants were exposed to famine have a higher BMI (0.84 kg/m2) and are more likely to be obese (5 percentage points) than women who were not exposed to famine. The effect of famine exposure increases monotonically along the BMI distribution. I do not find significant effects on obesity for men. I also find no evidence that the increase in BMI is differentially greater for the famine cohorts who are exposed to a food-rich environment in later life than for the famine cohorts who are not. Using detailed individual-level data on food intake and physical activities, I show that the increase in BMI for famine-exposed women is not due to higher fat intakes nor to more sedentary lifestyles. A biological rather than a behavioral mechanism appears to underlie the association between early childhood malnutrition and adult obesity.
