IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v615y2008i1p178-194.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the Feasibility and Impact of Federal Childhood Obesity Policies

Author

Listed:
  • Victoria L. Brescoll

    (Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University)

  • Rogan Kersh

    (NYU's Wagner School of Public Service)

  • Kelly D. Brownell

    (Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University)

Abstract

Research on childhood obesity has primarily been conducted by experts in nutrition, psychology, and medicine. Only recently have public policy scholars devoted serious work to this burgeoning public health crisis. Here the authors advance that research by surveying national experts in health/nutrition and health policy on the public health impact and the political feasibility of fifty-one federal policy options for addressing childhood obesity. Policies that were viewed as politically infeasible but having a great impact on childhood obesity emphasized outright bans on certain activities. In contrast, education and information dissemination policies were viewed as having the potential to receive a favorable hearing from national policy makers but little potential public health impact. Both nutrition and policy experts believed that increasing funding for research would be beneficial and politically feasible. A central need for the field is to develop the means to make high-impact policies more politically feasible.

Suggested Citation

  • Victoria L. Brescoll & Rogan Kersh & Kelly D. Brownell, 2008. "Assessing the Feasibility and Impact of Federal Childhood Obesity Policies," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 615(1), pages 178-194, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:615:y:2008:i:1:p:178-194
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716207309189
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716207309189
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716207309189?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. Jayachandran N. Variyam & John Cawley, 2006. "Nutrition Labels and Obesity," NBER Working Papers 11956, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. James J. Choi & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Optimal Defaults," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 180-185, May.
    3. Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein, 2023. "Libertarian paternalism," Chapters, in: Cass R. Sunstein & Lucia A. Reisch (ed.), Research Handbook on Nudges and Society, chapter 1, pages 10-16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Laura M. Segal & Emily A. Gadola, 2008. "Generation O: Addressing Childhood Overweight before It's Too Late," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 615(1), pages 195-213, January.
    2. Tatiana Homonoff & Lee‐Sien Kao & Javiera Selman & Christina Seybolt, 2022. "Skipping the Bag: The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Disposable Bag Regulation," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(1), pages 226-251, January.

    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. Ghesla, Claus & Grieder, Manuel & Schubert, Renate, 2020. "Nudging the poor and the rich – A field study on the distributional effects of green electricity defaults," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    2. Fredrik Carlsson, 2010. "Design of Stated Preference Surveys: Is There More to Learn from Behavioral Economics?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 46(2), pages 167-177, June.
    3. Fadlon, Itzik & Laibson, David, 2022. "Paternalism and pseudo-rationality: An illustration based on retirement savings," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    4. Davind Colander & Andrew Qi Lin Chong, 2010. "The Choice Architecture of Choice Architecture: Toward a Non-Paternalistic Nudge Policy," Journal of Economic Analysis, National Technical University of Athens, vol. 1(1), pages 42-48.
    5. Rogers, Todd & Bazerman, Max H., 2008. "Future lock-in: Future implementation increases selection of 'should' choices," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 1-20, May.
    6. Horneff, Vanya & Maurer, Raimond & Mitchell, Olivia S., 2020. "Putting the pension back in 401(k) retirement plans: Optimal versus default deferred longevity income annuities," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    7. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2017. "Soft paternalism, merit goods, and normative individualism," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 125-152, February.
    8. Egebark, Johan & Ekström, Mathias, 2016. "Can indifference make the world greener?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1-13.
    9. Nicole D. Sintov & P. Wesley Schultz, 2017. "Adjustable Green Defaults Can Help Make Smart Homes More Sustainable," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-12, April.
    10. Marco Fabbri & Michael Faure, 2018. "Toward a “constitution” for behavioral policy-making," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 65(3), pages 241-270, September.
    11. Abadie, Alberto & Gay, Sebastien, 2006. "The impact of presumed consent legislation on cadaveric organ donation: A cross-country study," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 599-620, July.
    12. Takanori Ida & Wenjie Wang, 2014. "A Field Experiment on Dynamic Electricity Pricing in Los Alamos:Opt-in Versus Opt-out," Discussion papers e-14-010, Graduate School of Economics Project Center, Kyoto University.
    13. J. M. Bauer & L. A. Reisch, 2019. "Behavioural Insights and (Un)healthy Dietary Choices: a Review of Current Evidence," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 3-45, March.
    14. David Schneider & Johannes Klumpe & Martin Adam & Alexander Benlian, 2020. "Nudging users into digital service solutions," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 30(4), pages 863-881, December.
    15. Jessica Wisdom & Julie S. Downs & George Loewenstein, 2010. "Promoting Healthy Choices: Information versus Convenience," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 164-178, April.
    16. O'Donoghue, Ted & Rabin, Matthew, 2006. "Optimal sin taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 1825-1849, November.
    17. Ted O’Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "Incentives and Self Control," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001262, UCLA Department of Economics.
    18. Marques Benton & Stephan Meier & Charles Sprenger, 2007. "Overborrowing and undersaving: lessons and policy implications from research in behavioral economics," Public and Community Affairs Discussion Papers 2007-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    19. García, Jesús María & Vila, José, 2020. "Financial literacy is not enough: The role of nudging toward adequate long-term saving behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 472-477.
    20. Stefania Sitzia & Jiwei Zheng & Daniel John Zizzo, 2012. "Complexity and Smart Nudges with Inattentive Consumers," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2012-13, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..

    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:sae:anname:v:615:y:2008:i:1:p:178-194. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.