Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Objective And Subjective Residential Context And Urban Children’S Weight Status And Physical And Sedentary Activities, Rachel Tolbert Kimbro, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Sara Mclanahan

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

This paper fills this gap by addressing two research questions: first, we ask, are the activity patterns (outdoor play and television watching) of five-year-old children living in large cities associated with children’s weight status? Second, we ask, is residential context, and neighborhood safety in particular, associated with children’s activity patterns? Consistent with past research, we find that outdoor play is negatively associated with weight status, while television watching is positively associated with weight status. We also find, unexpectedly, that the poorest children are playing outdoors the most and watching the most television. Finally, we find that three measures of residential …