Are conservatives fatter than liberals?

The maps above juxtaposes the counties which shifted Republican in the 2008 presidential election vs. 2004 (reddish) and the age-adjusted estimated rates of obesity by county in 2007 (darker blue). One issue which I haven’t seen explored too much are the two faces of Appalachia; the Atlantic facing counties are generally healthier than the lowland countries to their east, even controlling for race. In contrast, the west facing counties have some of the lowest human development indices in the United States. West Virginia is the fattest state. And it seems purely from inspection that the east facing counties of Appalachia which shifted toward the Republicans in 2008 are also amongst the fattest in the nation.

Rush Limbaugh, fat again

Is this simply a coincidence? A reader queried me about the relationship between politics and weight, wondering about correlations. I don’t follow politics too closely, but apparently there has been some conflict recently between conservatives who oppose the top-down campaign against obesity spearheaded by our cultural and political elites. My perception, which may be wrong, is that some are portraying this as another liberal culture war. To some extent this is dumb, as it seems that the biggest salient predictor of weight is class. The majority of American adults are overweight according to BMI thresholds, and a significant minority are obese. And yet none of the presidential and vice presidential candidates in 2008, or their spouses, were overweight. Take a look at the candidates during the Democratic and Republican debates in 2008, and you can see that they don’t “look like America.” Despite the efforts of NAAFA this is one way that Americans are not too keen on the candidates reflecting themselves. Rather, it seems that Americans were more accepting of fat heads of state when they were a slimmer folk.

Looking in the GSS there’s one variable which might shed light on the question of politics and weight, INTRWGHT. This is basically an interviewer assessment of the weight of the respondent. It was collected in 2004. I limited the sample to non-Hispanic whites to eliminate population stratification.

The first set of numbers sums to 100% for the rows, and the second set sums the columns. I don’t see a notable different obetween liberals and conservatives. The only exception might be that liberals are more well represented among those who are below average in weight than those who are considerably above average, but the samples are small enough than I don’t trust that to be anything more than measurement error.

There is another variable in regards to weight which I think is interesting: GENENVO1. The respondents were given this scenario: “Carol is a substantially overweight White woman. She has lost weight in the past but always gains it back again.” Then they were asked to rate the proportion of the outcome which could be attributed to genes. The means were as follows:

Liberals, 54% environmental
Moderates: 56% environmental
Conservatives: 61% environmental

I was a little dubious about this result, since it goes against stereotype. So I checked the other similar questions.

“George is a Black man who’s a good all-around athlete. He was on the high school varsity swim team and still works out five times a week.”

Liberals, 54% environmental
Moderates: 54% environmental
Conservatives: 59% environmental

“Felicia is a very kind Hispanic woman. She never has anything bad to say about anybody, and can be counted on to help others.”

Liberals, 54% environmental
Moderates: 58% environmental
Conservatives: 60% environmental

“David is an Asian man who drinks enough alcohol to become drunk several times a week. Often he can’t remember what happened during these drinking episodes.”

Liberals, 55% environmental
Moderates: 56% environmental
Conservatives: 58% environmental

The differences are small, but consistent. It could be incorrect coding, and I don’t know how it relates to the current perceived polarization on the issue of weight. My own suspicion is that this is more a creation of the media than anything else, but I am going to look at correlations on the county level data next. But at this point I doubt there’s a culture war around fat. Being fat may not be immoral, but most people would rather be slim. Though how we get there is a matter of some contention naturally.