Values, Norms, and Peer Effects on Weight Status

Table 4

Probit estimates of percentage of overweight on individual overweight (individualistic versus collectivistic, marginal effects).

	All	Individualistic	Collectivistic	Individualistic	Collectivistic
		Country-based		Individual-based
Proportion of overweight	0.406	0.270	0.345	0.310	0.494
	(0.053)	(0.077)	(0.084)	(0.164)	(0.136)
95% CI
	37917	22172	15745	4605	5529
Pseudo	0.102	0.089	0.135	0.144	0.094

The dependent variable is individual overweight status (1 if BMI ≥ 25 kg/m², 0 otherwise). At the country level, individualistic countries are Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and UK. Collectivistic countries are Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Spain, Israel, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, and Slovenia. At the individual level, individualistic is for those individuals having 75% or above centered values of achievement and power. Collectivistic is for those individuals having 75% or above centered values of universalism and benevolence. Controls are proportion of overweight (from its country age band gender cell), individual characteristics (dummies of age groups (with <20 as the reference group), gender, marital status, education), household income (4-point scale, with 1 = very difficult on present income as the reference), and country dummies. Robust standard errors are in parentheses; 95% confidence intervals (CI) are in brackets. Marginal effects are reported. < 0.1, < 0.05, and < 0.01.