Anderson. Patricia M., and Kristin F. Butcher. 2006. “Reading, Writing, and Refreshments: Are School Finances Contributing to Children’s Obesity?” Journal of Human Resources 41(3): 467–494.
Over the last two decades the proportion of adolescents in the United States who are obese has nearly tripled, and schools, citing financial pressures, have given students greater access to “junk” foods, using the proceeds to fund school programs. We examine whether schools under financial pressure tend to adopt potentially unhealthful food policies and whether students’ Body Mass Index (BMI) is higher where they are more likely to be exposed to these food policies. We find that a 10 percentage point increase in potential exposure to junk food in schools leads to about a 1 percent increase in students’ BMI.
Patricia Anderson is a professor of economics at Dartmouth College a researcher for the National Bureau of Economic Research and a coeditor of the JHR. Kristin Butcher is a researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The authors thank Sara Christopher Champion, Karenne Eng, A. J. Felkey, Katharine Anderson, and Fred Yarger for excellent research assistance. Nancy Brener provided advice in using the SHPPS data. They also thank Lisa Barrow, David Card, Kevin Hallock, Helen Levy, Thomas Lemieux, Nina Pavcnik, Doug Staiger, and participants in presentations at UC-Berkeley, the Chicago Fed, the College of William and Mary, Dartmouth College, the NBER Summer Institute, and the University of Virginia for helpful discussions. The views expressed here are the authors’ and do not necessarily represent those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Federal Reserve System, or any other entity. The authors take responsibility for all errors. A public-use version of the data used in this article can be obtained beginning January 2007 through December 2010 from Patricia Anderson, Department of Economics, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755-3514, patty.anderson@dartmouth.edu.