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Obesity and Skill Attainment in Early Childhood

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Author Info
John Cawley
C. Katharina Spiess

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Abstract

This paper investigates the association between obesity and skill attainment in early childhood (aged 2-4 years). Data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study are used to estimate models of developmental functioning in four critical areas (verbal skills, activities of daily living, motor skills, and social skills) as a function of various measures of weight (including body mass index and obesity) controlling for a rich set of child, parent, and family characteristics. The findings indicate that, among boys, obesity is associated with reduced verbal skills, social skills, motor skills, and activities of daily living. Among girls, obesity is associated with reduced verbal skills. Further investigations show that the correlations exist even for those preschool children who spend no time in day care, which implies that it cannot be due solely to discrimination by teachers, classmates, or day care providers.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13997.

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Date of creation: May 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13997

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman & Lance Lochner & Dimitriy V. Masterov, 2005. "Interpreting the Evidence on Life Cycle Skill Formation," NBER Working Papers 11331, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Burkhauser, Richard V. & Cawley, John, 2008. "Beyond BMI: The value of more accurate measures of fatness and obesity in social science research," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 519-529, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Coneus, Katja & Pfeiffer, Friedhelm, 2007. "Self-Productivity in Early Childhood," ZEW Discussion Papers 07-053, ZEW - Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung / Center for European Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
  4. Katja Coneus & Friedhelm Pfeiffer, 2007. "Self-Productivity in Early Childhood," SOEPpapers 39, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). [Downloadable!]
  5. Coneus, Katja & Pfeiffer, Friedhelm, 2007. "Self-Productivity in Early Childhood," ZEW Discussion Papers 07-053 [rev.], ZEW - Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung / Center for European Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
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