OSU study: Women who use food stamps weigh more

A study by an Ohio State University researcher has concluded that women who used food stamps had a higher body-mass index by 1.24 points, on average, than women who had not used food stamps (Source: “Female food-stamp recipients weigh more,” Columbus Dispatch, Aug. 12, 2009)

Jay Zagorsky, whose study of 4,000 people who have received food stamps over the past 14 years was co-written by Patricia Smith of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, said the study highlights that the monthly distribution of food stamp funds promotes binge eating. The study was published in the latest edition of the journal Economics & Human Biology.

Zagorsky's findings are backed by Hugo Melgar-Quinonez, an assistant professor in the department of human nutrition at Ohio State, who studies what's called "yo-yo dieting" among obese women who use food stamps and said that women, tend to buy a lot of food at once, when the money arrives. The cycle between binging and overeating when there is food, then under-eating when there isn't, leads the body to store more fat.
Zagorsky also found that white women who used food stamps gained more on the BMI charts than black women, 1.96 points compared with 1.1. However, the study could not find a correlation between men who use food stamps and higher BMI.