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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
The Impact of Outdoor Air Pollution Exposure
on Body Weight: Empirical Evidence from China
1
School of Health Management, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China
2
School of Economics, Xihua University, Chengdu, 610039, China
3
School of Economics, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, China
Submission date: 2024-01-24
Final revision date: 2024-03-10
Acceptance date: 2024-04-30
Online publication date: 2024-09-02
Publication date: 2025-01-28
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2025;34(3):2907-2923
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we examine whether outdoor air pollution has a causal effect on body weight.
To address the potential endogeneity, we exploit exogenous variation in PM2.5 concentrations generated
by China’s coal-fired winter heating policy, using regression discontinuity designs to estimate the impact
of winter heating on air pollution and body weight in adults. We find that high outdoor air pollution
exposure increases body mass index and the corresponding risk of obesity with a 1 μg/m3 increase
in annual average PM2.5 concentrations in the past ten years increasing body mass index by 0.014 units
and increasing the rate of adult obesity, by 0.3 percentage points. Our results are robust to using different
specifications. Furthermore, the rising risk of obesity caused by air pollution is mainly through channels
such as increased intake of energy-dense foods and less physical exercise. The findings imply that low
pollution exposure can be an effective way to improve dietary and physical activity patterns and reduce
the risk of becoming overweight.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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