Chapter 1 School Policies and Children's Obesity

Abstract

Questions have arisen as to whether the school environment is currently a contributing factor to the increase in childhood obesity, and whether changes in school policies could help curb the increase. In this chapter, we discuss key aspects of the literature on the role of the school food environment, and the role of the school activity environment in effecting the caloric intake and expenditure of children. We also simulate the effect of a range of reasonable changes in weekly minutes spent being active in school, and changes in weekly calories consumed in school.

Citation

Anderson, P.M., Butcher, K.F. and Whitmore Schanzenbach, D. (2010), "Chapter 1 School Policies and Children's Obesity", Slottje, D. and Tchernis, R. (Ed.) Current Issues in Health Economics (Contributions to Economic Analysis, Vol. 290), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0573-8555(2010)0000290004