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    Do you want fries with that? An exploration of serving size, social welfare, and our waistlines


    Jeitschko, Thomas D. and Pecchenino, Rowena A. (2007) Do you want fries with that? An exploration of serving size, social welfare, and our waistlines. Economic Inquiry, 44 (3). pp. 442-450. ISSN 0095-2583

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    Abstract

    In the debate over increasing obesity rates, fingers are often pointed at "big food" and their marketing practices. It is noted that restaurant meals are often larger than home-cooked meals and that portion sizes in restaurants have dramatically increased over the past few years. We investigate the issue by considering "socially optimal" -- rather than decentralized profit maximizing -- portions in restaurants to see whether welfare maximizing strategies may also be waistline-increasing. We demonstrate that "socially optimal" restaurant meals are larger in size than average home-cooked meals and, while many agents chose to "super-size", the option of super-sizing actually alleviates the size discrepancy between home-cooked and restaurant meals. Moreover, "socially optimal" portion sizes at home and in restaurants increase with relative reductions in the marginal costs and/or relative increases in the fixed costs of meal preparation. Given this cost structure, when offered fries a greater proportion of the population will answer with an enthusiastic "yes"!

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: Preprint version of original published article. The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.com (DOI: 10.1093/ei/cbj036)
    Keywords: obesity; serving size; social welfare; public health policy;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Science and Engineering
    Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics, Finance and Accounting
    Item ID: 2800
    Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1093/ei/cbj036
    Depositing User: Prof. Rowena Pecchenino
    Date Deposited: 26 Oct 2011 14:37
    Journal or Publication Title: Economic Inquiry
    Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
    Refereed: No
    URI:
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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