Feast or Famine

People who live in households where food is sometimes plentiful, sometimes not, tend to be fatter than those who always have enough to eat. That’s what Parke Wilde, a food economist at the Friedman School, and Jerusha N. Peterman, a student in Friedman’s Food Policy and Applied Nutrition Program, discovered when they analyzed data from a study of 10,000 Americans.

Women with seesawing food supplies were 50 percent more likely to be obese, and to gain 10 pounds in a year, than women who always had plenty, according to Wild and Peterman’s study, published in the Journal of Nutrition.

The “gradual weight gain may occur from periods of underconsumption followed by compensatory overconsumption,” as the women’s food supply ebbed and flowed, Wilde said. Or, he added, “when money is less available, people may consume inexpensive, high-calorie foods.”

If unstable food supplies are the culprit, Wilde said, one solution might be distributing food stamps more frequently than once a month, thereby evening out food supplies for low-income households.