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Thursday, April 28th, 2022

Panka Bencsik (Chicago University) will present Slow Traffic, Fast Food: The Effects of Time Lost on Food Choice”, a joint work with Lester Lusher (U. Hawaii) and Becca Taylor (U. Sydney).

Abstract:

More Americans are eating fast food and experiencing overweight and obesity issues than ever before. Studies have found that time scarcity is one of the strongest correlates of fast food consumption, more so than other factors including income. We match daily, store-specific foot traffic data traced via smartphones to highway traffic monitors in Los Angeles County for 2017-2019 to estimate the causal effect of time lost via highway congestion on food choice. We estimate an increase in dining out on days when highways are more congested: a standard deviation increase in daily traffic induces a nearly 4% increase in fast food visits and a 2% increase in visits to traditional restaurants. The effects are more pronounced for afternoon rush hours, with little effect on future store visits, suggesting people are not simply changing the time or day they choose to eat out. Moreover, visits to supermarkets weakly decrease in response to traffic. Overall our results imply a net reduction in healthy food choice in response to time lost.