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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Is Being In School Better? The Impact Of School On Children's Bmi When Starting Age Is Endogenous, Patricia Anderson, Kristin Butcher, Elizabeth Cascio, Diane Schanzenbach
Is Being In School Better? The Impact Of School On Children's Bmi When Starting Age Is Endogenous, Patricia Anderson, Kristin Butcher, Elizabeth Cascio, Diane Schanzenbach
Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach
In this paper, we investigate the impact of attending school on body weight and obesity using a regression-discontinuity design. As is the case with academic outcomes, school exposure is related to unobserved determinants of weight outcomes because some families choose to have their child start school late (or early). If one does not account for this endogeneity, it appears that an additional year of school exposure results in a greater BMI and a higher probability of being overweight or obese. When we compare the weight outcomes of similar age children with one versus two years of school exposure due to …
Adequate (Or Adipose?) Yearly Progress: Assessing The Effect Of "No Child Left Behind" On Children's Obesity, Patricia Anderson, Kristin Butcher, Diane Schanzenbach
Adequate (Or Adipose?) Yearly Progress: Assessing The Effect Of "No Child Left Behind" On Children's Obesity, Patricia Anderson, Kristin Butcher, Diane Schanzenbach
Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach
This paper investigates how accountability pressures under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) may affect children’s rate of overweight. Schools facing increased pressures to produce academic outcomes may reallocate their efforts in ways that have unintended consequences for children’s health. For example, schools may cut back on recess and physical education in favor of increasing time on tested subjects. To examine the impact of school accountability programs, we create a unique panel data set of schools in Arkansas that allows us to test the impact of NCLB rules on students’ weight outcomes. Our main approach is to consider schools to be …