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. 2014 Dec;4(1):20.
doi: 10.1186/s13561-014-0020-8. Epub 2014 Sep 16.

Parents' willingness to pay for the prevention of childhood overweight and obesity

Dorothea Kesztyüs  1 , Romy Lauer, Anja C Schreiber, Tibor Kesztyüs, Reinhold Kilian, Jürgen M Steinacker
Affiliations

Parents' willingness to pay for the prevention of childhood overweight and obesity

Dorothea Kesztyüs et al. Health Econ Rev. 2014 Dec.

Abstract

Objective: To determine parental willingness-to-pay (WTP) for childhood obesity prevention.

Methods: Cross-sectional data from the follow-up measurements (2011) of a health promotion programme in German primary schools. Data collection included anthropometric measurements of children and self-administered questionnaires for parents, including WTP assessment. Mann-Whitney U-Test was used for differences between groups, and regression analysis to identify factors associated with general WTP and amount of WTP.

Results: From 1 534 parents, 97.8% considered overweight/obesity to be serious public health problems. A general WTP to reduce the incidence of childhood overweight/obesity by half, was declared by 48.8%. Parents of overweight/obese children showed with 61.4%, significantly more frequently, their general WTP than the others with 47.2% (p = 0.001). Mean WTP was <euro>23.04 (99% confidence interval (CI) [22.45; 23.75]) per month. Parents of centrally obese children showed significantly higher WTP than parents of the other children (p = 0.001). General WTP and the amount of WTP were associated with the central obesity of the child, migration status and household income. Additionally, general WTP was associated with maternal obesity.

Conclusions: Nearly half of the parents were willing to invest in prevention of obesity. The general WTP significantly occurs more often and with higher amount in affected parents.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of datasets available for the analysis of the parental willingness to pay (WTP). Flow chart showing the respective underlying number of datasets for each part of the analysis.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Categories of the parental willingness to pay (WTP). Bar chart showing the 10 categories of WTP and the respective percentages referring to n = 710 participants.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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