Is the Obesity Epidemic aConsequence of Rational Choices?

The Pitfalls of Free Markets

Excerpted from

Free Market Madness:

Why Human Nature Is at Odds With Economicsand Why It Matters

By

Peter A. Ubel

Buy the book:Amazon

Barnes & NobleHarvardBusiness.org

Harvard Business PressBoston, Massachusetts

ISBN-13: 978-1-4221-3959-2

3936BC

For exclusive use University of New South Wales, 2015

This document is authorized for use only in ECON1401 - Economic Analysis - s1/2015 by Gigi Foster, University of New South Wales from February 2015 to August 2015.

Copyright 2008 Harvard Business School Publishing CorporationAll rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

This chapter was originally published as chapter 2 of Free Market Madness:Why Human Nature Is at Odds With Economicsand Why It Matters,

copyright 2009 Peter A. Ubel.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for

permission should be directed to permissions@harvardbusiness.org, or mailed to Permissions,Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163.

You can purchase Harvard Business Press books at booksellers worldwide.You can order HarvardBusiness Press books and book chapters online at www.harvardbusiness.org/press,

or by calling 888-500-1016 or, outside the U.S. and Canada, 617-783-7410.

For exclusive use University of New South Wales, 2015

This document is authorized for use only in ECON1401 - Economic Analysis - s1/2015 by Gigi Foster, University of New South Wales from February 2015 to August 2015.

C H A P T E R T W O

Is the Obesity Epidemic

a Consequence of

Rational Choices?

M U C H O F T H E P O W E R of economics as a social scienceresides in its ability to reveal the logic underlying a wide range ofhuman behaviors. Economists have developed mathematical toolsthat elucidate the kinds of cost-benet calculations that inuenceeverything from criminal behavior to marital decision making.Indeed, economists have even done a good job of highlighting therational choices that have contributed to the obesity epidemic.

It is strange, of course, to describe obesity as a rational choice.All else equal, few people choose to be fat. To call obesity a conse-quence of rational choice, however, is not to say that the JohnHowards of the world want to be fat. Instead, it amounts to sayingthat John has faced a series of choices in his life and has largelymade them rationally; that some of those choices concerned thefood he atehe knew that Big Macs werent helping him squeezeinto his old trousers; and that John decided that the pain of forgo-ing delicious meals was greater than the benet of reducing hiscaloric intake.