Does higher education reduce body weight? Evidence using a reform of the student grant scheme

The prevalence of obesity and overweight has increased in almost all Western countries in the past twenty to thirty years, with social disparities in many of these countries. This paper contributes to the literature on the relation between education and body weight by studying the effect of higher education on body weight according to subgroups of parental income background. To uncover the causal relationship between higher education and body weight, we use a reform of the Danish student grant scheme, which involved a grant increase of approximately 60% in 1988. When using this reform as instrumental variable, we find no effect among men of higher education on the probability of being either overweight or healthy-weighted. However, we find suggestive evidence that the effect differs by income background. Amongst men who grew up in low-income households, enrolling in higher education increases the probability of being in a healthy weight category (and reduces the probability of being overweight). Amongst men who grew up in middle or high-income households, enrolling in higher education has no effect on the probability of being either healthy-weighted or overweight.