Positive Deviants: How Different is the Behavior of Healthy Low-Income Individuals?

This paper compares the purchasing behavior of low-income household by various health indicators, like BMI and exercise, by linking household food purchase scanner data with nutrition, demographics, and health data. Our paper supports previous research that sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is highest amongst low-income households. However, we also show that, conditional on income, households with healthier individuals tend to spend less per capita on beverages then households with less healthy individuals. If policy makers are interested in using behavioral nudges to change consumer behavior, then understanding the purchasing behavior of healthy low-income households will be crucial. Nudging unhealthy households to behave like healthy households will be more successful if those households are demographically similar. This paper provides a rigorous evaluation of the behavioral patterns that distinguish healthy and unhealthy individuals within narrow socio-demographic bounds that are normally predictive of poor health.