How Does Time Poverty Affect Behavior? A Look at Eating and Physical Activity

This paper uses data on daily activities from the American Time Use Survey and the associated Eating Health Module to analyze the relationships between time poverty and specific energy-balance behaviors. The authors estimate a simultaneous model to jointly analyze the relationships between time poverty and the probability of a fast food purchase, the number of eating and drinking occurrences, minutes spent engaging in sports and exercise, and the probability of engaging in active travel (walking or cycling). Time-poor individuals were found to have different eating and physical activity patterns than non-time-poor individuals; those who were time-poor were less likely to purchase fast food and also less likely to engage in active travel.