Working Paper: NBER ID: w11177
Authors: Patricia M. Anderson; Kristin F. Butcher
Abstract: The proportion of adolescents in the United States who are obese has nearly tripled over the last two decades. At the same time, schools, often citing financial pressures, have given students greater access to "junk" foods, using proceeds from the sales to fund school programs. We examine whether schools under financial pressure are more likely to adopt potentially unhealthful food policies. We find that a 10 percentage point increase in the probability of access to junk food leads to about a one percent increase in students' body mass index (BMI). However, this average effect is entirely driven by adolescents who have an overweight parent, for whom the effect of such food policies is much larger (2.2%). This suggests that those adolescents who have a genetic or family susceptibility to obesity are most affected by the school food environment. A rough calculation suggests that the increase in availability of junk foods in schools can account for about one-fifth of the increase in average BMI among adolescents over the last decade.
Keywords: obesity; school food policies; adolescent health
JEL Codes: I1; I2; J1
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| School food policies (I28) | Adolescent BMI (J13) |
| Availability of junk food in schools (L81) | Adolescent BMI (J13) |
| Increase in junk food availability in schools (I21) | Rise in average BMI among adolescents (I10) |
| School food policies (I28) | Access to high-calorie foods (D18) |
| Access to high-calorie foods (D18) | Energy intake among susceptible individuals (I12) |