IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea12/124905.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are National School Lunch Program Participants More Likely to be Obese? Dealing with Identification

Author

Listed:
  • Peckham, Janet G.
  • Kropp, Jaclyn D.

Abstract

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) has been criticized for providing high calorie lunches to over 31 million school-age students. With nearly 17 percent of children considered obese, the relationship between NSLP participation and childhood obesity has been studied extensively without conclusive evidence. This paper presents a review of the literature thus far and examines identification issues when estimating the average treatment effect or local average treatment effect of the NSLP. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the author finds that when restrictive parametric assumptions are removed, participation in the NSLP reduces the probability of being obese in school age children.

Suggested Citation

  • Peckham, Janet G. & Kropp, Jaclyn D., 2012. "Are National School Lunch Program Participants More Likely to be Obese? Dealing with Identification," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124905, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea12:124905
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.124905
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/124905/files/Are%20NSLP%20Participants%20More%20Likely%20to%20be%20Obese%202012.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.124905?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manski, Charles F, 1990. "Nonparametric Bounds on Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 319-323, May.
    2. Daniel L. Millimet & Rusty Tchernis & Muna Husain, 2010. "School Nutrition Programs and the Incidence of Childhood Obesity," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(3).
    3. Mary Kay Crepinsek & Anne R. Gordon & Patricia M. McKinney & Elizabeth M. Condon & Ander Wilson, "undated". "Meals Offered and Served in US Public Schools: Do They Meet Nutrient Standards?," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 7bf4cc05ef2c4044a165cb04a, Mathematica Policy Research.
    4. Rachel Dunifon & Lori Kowaleski-Jones, 2001. "Associations Between Participation in the National School Lunch Program, Food Insecurity, and Child Well-Being," JCPR Working Papers 249, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    5. Philip M. Gleason & Carol W. Suitor, 2003. "Eating at School: How the National School Lunch Program Affects Children's Diets," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(4), pages 1047-1061.
    6. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    7. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    8. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "An Evaluation of Instrumental Variable Strategies for Estimating the Effects of Catholic Schooling," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(4), pages 791-821.
    9. Gundersen, Craig & Kreider, Brent & Pepper, John, 2012. "The impact of the National School Lunch Program on child health: A nonparametric bounds analysis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 166(1), pages 79-91.
    10. Brent Kreider & John V. Pepper & Craig Gundersen & Dean Jolliffe, 2012. "Identifying the Effects of SNAP (Food Stamps) on Child Health Outcomes When Participation Is Endogenous and Misreported," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 107(499), pages 958-975, September.
    11. repec:mpr:mprres:6162 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Sharon K. Long, 1991. "Do the School Nutrition Programs Supplement Household Food Expenditures?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(4), pages 654-678.
    13. Charles F. Manski & John V. Pepper, 2000. "Monotone Instrumental Variables, with an Application to the Returns to Schooling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(4), pages 997-1012, July.
    14. Ralston, Katherine L. & Newman, Constance & Clauson, Annette L. & Guthrie, Joanne F. & Buzby, Jean C., 2008. "The National School Lunch Program: Background, Trends, and Issues," Economic Research Report 56464, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    15. Benjamin L. Campbell & Rodolfo M. Nayga & John L. Park & Andres Silva, 2011. "Does the National School Lunch Program Improve Children's Dietary Outcomes?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1099-1130.
    16. Chiburis, Richard C., 2010. "Semiparametric bounds on treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 159(2), pages 267-275, December.
    17. Robert A. Moffitt, 2003. "Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number moff03-1, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chad D. Meyerhoefer & Muzhe Yang, 2011. "The Relationship between Food Assistance and Health: A Review of the Literature and Empirical Strategies for Identifying Program Effects," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 33(3), pages 304-344.
    2. Gundersen, Craig & Kreider, Brent & Pepper, John, 2012. "The impact of the National School Lunch Program on child health: A nonparametric bounds analysis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 166(1), pages 79-91.
    3. Marcus, Michelle & Yewell, Katherine G., 2022. "The Effect of Free School Meals on Household Food Purchases: Evidence from the Community Eligibility Provision," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Travis A. Smith & Eliza M. Mojduszka & Shun Chen, 2021. "Did the New School Meal Standards Improve the Overall Quality of Children's Diets?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(4), pages 1366-1384, December.
    5. Craig Gundersen & Brent Kreider & John Pepper & Valerie Tarasuk, 2017. "Food assistance programs and food insecurity: implications for Canada in light of the mixing problem," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 1065-1087, May.
    6. Matthew A. Masten & Alexandre Poirier, 2021. "Salvaging Falsified Instrumental Variable Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(3), pages 1449-1469, May.
    7. Peckham, Janet G. & Kropp, Jaclyn D. & Mroz, Thomas A. & Haley-Zitlin, Vivian & Granberg, Ellen M. & Hawthorne, Nikki, 2013. "Do School Lunch Menus Influence National School Lunch Program Participation?," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150398, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Travis A. Smith, 2017. "Do School Food Programs Improve Child Dietary Quality?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(2), pages 339-356.
    9. Mourifié, Ismael, 2015. "Sharp bounds on treatment effects in a binary triangular system," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 187(1), pages 74-81.
    10. Aizawa, T.;, 2019. "Reviewing the Existing Evidence of the Conditional Cash Transfer in India through the Partial Identification Approach," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 19/24, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    11. Bütikofer, Aline & Mølland, Eirin & Salvanes, Kjell G., 2018. "Childhood nutrition and labor market outcomes: Evidence from a school breakfast program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 62-80.
    12. Davis, Will & Kreisman, Daniel & Musaddiq, Tareena, 2023. "The Effect of Universal Free School Meals on Child BMI," IZA Discussion Papers 16387, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Wooyoung Kim & Koohyun Kwon & Soonwoo Kwon & Sokbae (Simon) Lee, 2014. "The identification power of smoothness assumptions in models with counterfactual outcomes," CeMMAP working papers 17/14, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    14. Helen H. Jensen & Brent Kreider & Oleksandr Zhylyevskyy, 2019. "Investigating Treatment Effects of Participating Jointly in SNAP and WIC when the Treatment Is Validated Only for SNAP," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(1), pages 124-155, July.
    15. Lorenzo Almada & Ian McCarthy & Rusty Tchernis, 2016. "What Can We Learn about the Effects of Food Stamps on Obesity in the Presence of Misreporting?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 98(4), pages 997-1017.
    16. Lina Zhang & David T. Frazier & D. S. Poskitt & Xueyan Zhao, 2020. "Decomposing Identification Gains and Evaluating Instrument Identification Power for Partially Identified Average Treatment Effects," Papers 2009.02642, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2022.
    17. Chen, Xuan & Flores, Carlos A. & Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso, 2015. "Going Beyond LATE: Bounding Average Treatment Effects of Job Corps Training," IZA Discussion Papers 9511, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Lafférs, Lukáš, 2013. "A note on bounding average treatment effects," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(3), pages 424-428.
    19. Daniel Millimet & Manan Roy, 2015. "Partial identification of the long-run causal effect of food security on child health," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 83-141, February.
    20. Agustina Laurito & Amy Ellen Schwartz, 2019. "Does School Lunch Fill the “SNAP Gap” at the End of the Month?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(1), pages 49-82, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea12:124905. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.