Journal article
The impact of physical education on obesity among elementary school children
Journal of health economics, Vol.32(4), pp.743-755
07/01/2013
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2013.04.006
PMID: 23721885
Abstract
In response to the dramatic rise in childhood obesity, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other organizations have advocated increasing the amount of time that elementary school children spend in physical education (PE) classes. However, little is known about the effect of PE on child weight. This paper measures that effect by instrumenting for child PE time with the state's mandated minimum number of minutes of PE, using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) for 1998-2004. Results from IV models indicate that PE lowers BMI z-score and reduces the probability of obesity among 5th graders. This effect is concentrated among boys; we find evidence that this gender difference is partly attributable to PE being a complement with other physical activity for boys, whereas they are substitutes for girls. This represents some of the first evidence of a causal effect of PE on youth obesity, and thus offers at least some support for the assumptions behind the CDC recommendations. We find no evidence that increased PE time crowds out time in academic courses or has spillovers to achievement test scores. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The impact of physical education on obesity among elementary school children
- Creators
- John Cawley - Cornell UniversityDavid Frisvold - Emory UniversityChad Meyerhoefer - Lehigh University
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of health economics, Vol.32(4), pp.743-755
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2013.04.006
- PMID
- 23721885
- ISSN
- 0167-6296
- eISSN
- 1879-1646
- Number of pages
- 13
- Grant note
- Faculty Research Grant from Lehigh University Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Emory Global Health Institute Cornell Institute on Health Economics, Health Behaviors and Disparities
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 07/01/2013
- Academic Unit
- Economics; Public Policy Center (Archive)
- Record Identifier
- 9984283573402771
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