|
Even though the family environment explains
much of the increase, 60 percent is attributed
to other influences. “Intriguingly, we also find
that for disadvantaged children the parent-child
link seems weaker,” said Schanzenbach. “So,
this leaves a larger potential role for childspecific
environments like day care and school
to impact weight.”
One possible explanation for the impact of
schools may be related to No Child Left Behind.
Due to the pressures that schools—often
poorer schools—face to raise standardized test
scores, they often choose to cut recess and gym
classes in order to squeeze in more teaching
time. Schanzenbach argues schools—through
policies regarding school meals, recess, and
gym—are crucial to enhancing the health of
American children.
Schanzenbach stressed that researchers are only
in the early stages of understanding why poorer
children are more obese, in part because of the
difficulty in measuring the impact of changing
environmental factors. But they do know any
type of disadvantage seems to be harmful—
whether it is having parents with little education
or low family income—and Hispanic children
tend to be more obese than non-Hispanics
or blacks.
“From where we sit it’s exciting that there’s room
for policies to address children in particular,”
she said. “More obese children grow up to be
more obese adults and to the extent that we can
address this, we think that there can be a real
long-term payoff to improving child health.”
Patricia M. Anderson, Kristin F. Butcher, and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, “Childhood Disadvantage and Obesity: Is Nurture Trumping Nature?” National
Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 13479, www.nber.org/papers/w13479.
| 
