Bhattacharya, Jayanta, Janet Currie, and Steven J. Haider. 2006. “Breakfast of Champions? The School Breakfast Program and the Nutrition of Children and Families.” Journal of Human Resources 41(3): 445–466.
We examine the effect of the School Breakfast Program (SBP) availability with the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey III. Our work builds on previous research by developing a transparent difference-in-differences strategy to account for unobserved differences between students with access to SBP and those without, using serum measures in addition to intake measures to assess the potential program effects, and examining program effects on other household members. Our results suggest that the SBP program improves the nutritional outcomes of the direct recipient across a wide array of different measures. Our results indicate fewer positive effects for other household members.
Jayanta Bhattacharya is a professor of economics and medicine at the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, Stanford University and NBER. Janet Currie is a professor of economics at Columbia University and NBER. Steven J. Haider is a professor of economics at Michigan State University. This research was supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (No. 43-3AEM-1-80071) and the National Institute for Child Health and Development (R03HD42084-01). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the National Institute of Child Health and Development. Currie is also grateful for support from Princeton’s Center for Health and Well-Being. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning January 2007 through December 2010 from Steven J. Haider; Department of Economics; Michigan State University; 110 Marshall-Adams Hall; East Lansing, MI 48823; haider@msu.edu.