Working Paper: NBER ID: w15046
Authors: Lisa M. Powell; Frank J. Chaloupka
Abstract: This study examines the relationship between child weight and fast food and fruit and vegetable prices and the availability of fast food restaurants, full-service restaurants, supermarkets, grocery stores and convenience stores. We estimate cross-sectional and individual-level fixed effects (FE) models to account for unobserved individual-level heterogeneity. Data are drawn from the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics combined with external food price and outlet density data at the zip code level. FE results show that higher fruit and vegetable prices are statistically significantly related to a higher body mass index (BMI) percentile ranking among children with greater effects among low-income children: fruit and vegetable price elasticity for BMI is estimated to be 0.25 for the full sample and 0.60 among low-income children. Fast food prices are statistically significantly related to child weight only in cross-sectional models among low-income children with a price elasticity of -0.77. Increased supermarket availability and fewer available convenience stores are related with lower weight outcomes among low-income children. These results provide evidence on the potential effectiveness of using fiscal pricing interventions such as taxes and subsidies and other interventions to improve supermarket access as policy instruments to address childhood obesity.
Keywords: child obesity; food prices; BMI; fiscal policy; supermarket access
JEL Codes: I1
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Higher fruit and vegetable prices (Q11) | Higher BMI percentile ranking among children (I10) |
| Increased supermarket availability (L81) | Lower BMI outcomes among low-income children (I32) |
| Fewer convenience stores (L81) | Lower weight outcomes among low-income children (I32) |
| Fast food prices (F31) | Higher BMI percentile ranking among low-income children (I32) |