Self Control and Food Consumption at Home and in the Wild - Empirical Evidence of the Age Cohorts in Taiwan

As the increasing prevalence of obesity in the world, how to prevent increasing body weight has became important policy issue. This paper addresses this issue using the behavioral economic models to empirically test food consumption behaviors and self-control problem. In contrast to replying on experimental evidence of the behavioral economic studies, age cohort data are constructed for households in Taiwan and food away from home and several categories of food consumption at home are recognized. Results show that self-control problem are evident for food away from home, and the effects are more pronounced for younger age cohorts. In contrast, staple and secondary food consumption at home are more stable across life-time periods and no self-control problem is evident.