The Wall Street Journal
A new National Bureau of Economic Research paper suggests that increases in unemployment lead to a decrease in fruit and vegetable consumption with potentially long-lived effects on workers health.
Getty ImagesAmong those who are predicted to be at the highest risk of unemployment a one percentage point increase in the residents state unemployment rate is associated with a 2 to 4 reduction in the frequency of fruits and vegetable consumption and an 8 reduction in the consumption of salad" economists Dhaval Dave of Bentley University in Waltham Mass. and Inas Rashad Kelly of Queens College in Flushing N.Y said.
The research relies on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System a telephone survey in which 350000 Americans are interviewed each year and compares communities with different unemployment rates between 1990 and 2007 before the last recession began.
Since December of 2007" they note the national unemployment rate doubled from 5 to 10 over the following two years." The economists say this implies that the frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption would decline by between 10 and 20 all else equal among the most vulnerable populations such as low-educated individuals."
Other research yields different results about the impact of unemployment on health and behavior. Another recent NBER study by Xin Xu and Robert Kaestner finds that the more hours people work and the higher their wages they more cigarettes they smoke.
Work by Christopher Ruhm concludes that recessions are good for ones health; he finds that during good times there are more fatal auto accidents and more deaths from disease - though fewer suicides. However research by Daniel Sullivan and Till von Wachter finds that mortality rates in the year following a layoff among high-seniority male workers increases sharply.
