The vanishing weight gap: Trends in obesity among adult food stamp participants (US) (1976–2002) § Michele Ver Ploeg a, * , Lisa Mancino a , Biing-Hwan Lin a , Chia-Yih Wang b a U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Washington, DC, United States b Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, Hyattsville, MD, United States Received 5 October 2006; accepted 6 October 2006 Abstract High rates of obesity among low-income populations have led some to question whether USDA’s food assistance programs have contributed to this health problem. Using data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES), this study shows that the association between food assistance program participation and body weight measures has weakened over the past three decades. Earlier NHANES data show that program participants were more likely to be overweight than individuals who were eligible but not participating in the program. This was particularly true among white women. However, the more recent data show that these differences have vanished, as the BMI of the rest of the population has caught up to BMI levels of food stamps recipients. Published by Elsevier B.V. JEL classification : I1; I38; Q18 Keywords: Obesity; U.S. Food Stamp Program; BMI; Weight 1. Introduction The rise of obesity in the U.S. has generated an active literature exploring how economic factors may have contributed to this trend. As potential factors, researchers have examined how technological changes over the past several decades have affected the relative price of food, http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ehb Economics and Human Biology 5 (2007) 20–36 § The opinions expressed here are these of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. * Corresponding author at: Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1800 M Street, NW, Room N2165, Washington, DC 20036, United States. Tel.: +1 202 694 5372; fax: +1 202 694 5663. E-mail address: sverploeg@ers.usda.gov (M. Ver Ploeg). 1570-677X/$ – see front matter. Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.ehb.2006.10.002