Lifestyle Choices and Health: Participation in the Norwegian Monitor Survey 2007

The average Norwegian weighs 5.0-5.8 kilos more now than fifteen years ago. More than fifty percent of us are now either overweight or obese. The trend is negative also for related chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and certain cancer types. This ha s been linked to unhealthier diets and more sedentary lifestyles. Thus, new research that adds knowledge on what factors affect eating behavior, physical activity levels and related health outcomes is important. The proposed project intends to investigate these factors by taking a multivariate and multidisciplinary approach to an issue of a highly complex and multidisciplinary nature. More specifically, we will use data from the Norwegian Monitor Survey to study how (i) lifestyle choices, here defined as a combination of diet quality and level of physical activity, (ii) related health outcomes such as obesity, and (iii) demand for specific food groups are affected by factors such as demographics, socioeconomics, initial health capital, prices, informatio n, knowledge, attitudes, self perception, time preferences and self control. Our models will be based on health economics, but we intend to add elements from behavioral economics, which modifies standard economic theory by integrating elements from other disciplines, such as psychology, in order to get a more realistic and complete picture of human behavior. Furthermore, together with U.S. collaborators, we want to use Norwegian Monitor data and a similar U.S. data set to do comparative studies on lifesty le and health issues. The results are relevant for policy purposes. An advantage of multidisciplinary studies of lifestyle choices and related health outcomes is the possibility to assess the relative importance of different kinds of lifestyle triggers a nd constraints for different kinds of people. These results will hopefully add knowledge on how to design more tailored, targeted and thus efficient lifestyle related policies and interventions.