IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/saea16/229803.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Peer Effects on Childhood Obesity from a Physical Activity and Dietary Intervention Program

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Yajuan
  • Palma, Marco
  • Towne, Samuel
  • Warren, Judith
  • Ory, Marcia

Abstract

Objectives : The purpose of this research is to estimate peer effects on third grade students’ BMI and to investigate the social and physiological explanations for such effects. Methods : The BMI of students participating in a childhood obesity intervention program is used to assess peer effects on students’ BMI within the framework of identification of endogenous social effects. Two-stage instrumental variable models are applied using the data before and after the intervention program, and further peer effects are compared by gender and two BMI categorization groups: improvement versus non-improvement. Results : Strong peer effects are found for the overall sample, and for females and males in general. However, when classifying students into improvement versus non-improvement groups, the peer effect is only found among females who are categorized in the improvement group and males in the non-improvement group. Males are more likely to be influenced by their interactions with peer friends towards the direction of unhealthy behavior; females, on the contrary, are more likely to be influenced by interaction with peer friends towards the direction of healthy behavior. Conclusions : Peer effects are found for students aged 8-11, with gender differences in the psychological and social behavioral motivations.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Yajuan & Palma, Marco & Towne, Samuel & Warren, Judith & Ory, Marcia, 2016. "Peer Effects on Childhood Obesity from a Physical Activity and Dietary Intervention Program," 2016 Annual Meeting, February 6-9, 2016, San Antonio, Texas 229803, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:saea16:229803
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.229803
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/229803/files/SAEA%20version.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.229803?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. Fortin, Bernard & Yazbeck, Myra, 2015. "Peer effects, fast food consumption and adolescent weight gain," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 125-138.
    2. Jebaraj Asirvatham & Rodolfo M. Nayga, Jr. & Michael R. Thomsen, 2014. "Peer-Effects in Obesity among Public Elementary School Children: A Grade-Level Analysis," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 36(3), pages 438-459.
    3. Caroline Hoxby, 2000. "Peer Effects in the Classroom: Learning from Gender and Race Variation," NBER Working Papers 7867, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Asirvatham, Jebaraj & Nayga, Rodolfo M., Jr. & Thomsen, Michael R., 2012. "Peer-Effects In Obesity Among Public School Children: A Grade-Level Analysis," 2012 AAEA/EAAE Food Environment Symposium 122732, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Ryo Nakajima, 2007. "Measuring Peer Effects on Youth Smoking Behaviour," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(3), pages 897-935.
    6. Ryo Nakajima, 2004. "Measuring Peer Effects on Youth Smoking Behavior," ISER Discussion Paper 0600, Institute of Social and Economic Research, The University of Osaka.
    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. Crudu, Federico & Neri, Laura & Tiezzi, Silvia, 2021. "Family ties and child obesity in Italy," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).

    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. Xu Lin, 2014. "Network attributes and peer effects," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(3), pages 2060-2079.
    2. Steven N. Durlauf & Yannis M. Ioannides, 2010. "Social Interactions," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 451-478, September.
    3. Ana Balsa & Carlos Díaz, 2018. "Social interactions in health behaviors and conditions," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1802, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    4. Chen, Yuanyuan & Feng, Shuaizhang & Yang, Chao, 2024. "Heterogeneous peer effects under endogenous selection: An application to local and migrant children in elementary schools in Shanghai," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    5. Chih‐Sheng Hsieh & Hans van Kippersluis, 2018. "Smoking initiation: Peers and personality," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), pages 825-863, July.
    6. ÖZGÜR, Onur & BISIN, Alberto, 2011. "Dynamic Linear Economies with Social Interactions," Cahiers de recherche 04-2011, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    7. Hsieh, Chih-Sheng & Lin, Xu, 2017. "Gender and racial peer effects with endogenous network formation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 135-147.
    8. Xu Lin, 2015. "Utilizing spatial autoregressive models to identify peer effects among adolescents," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 929-960, November.
    9. Julian Reif, 2019. "A Model Of Addiction And Social Interactions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(2), pages 759-773, April.
    10. Markus Kinateder & Luca Paolo Merlino, 2021. "The Evolution of Networks and Local Public Good Provision: A Potential Approach," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-12, July.
    11. Yann Bramoullé & Habiba Djebbari & Bernard Fortin, 2020. "Peer Effects in Networks: A Survey," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 603-629, August.
    12. Haiqing Xu, 2010. "Social Interactions: A Game Theoretic Approach," Department of Economics Working Papers 130914, The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Economics.
    13. Bautista, María Angélica & González, Felipe & Martinez, Luis R. & Muñoz, Pablo & Prem, Mounu, 2020. "Does Higher Education Reduce Mortality? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Chile," SocArXiv 5s2px, Center for Open Science.
    14. Carl Simon & David Mendez, 2022. "The importance of peer imitation on smoking initiation over time: a dynamical systems approach," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 222-236, June.
    15. Gaonkar, Shweta & Mele, Angelo, 2023. "A model of inter-organizational network formation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 82-104.
    16. Gibbons, Steve & Overman, Henry G. & Patacchini, Eleonora, 2015. "Spatial Methods," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 115-168, Elsevier.
    17. Claudia Cerrone, 2021. "Doing It When Others Do: A Strategic Model Of Procrastination," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(1), pages 315-328, January.
    18. Horrace, William & Jung, Hyunseok & Presler, Jonathan & Schwartz, Amy Ellen, 2021. "What Makes a Classmate a Peer? Examining which peers matter in NYC elementary schools," Working Papers 21-4, Sinquefield Center for Applied Economic Research, Saint Louis University, revised 17 Jan 2022.
    19. Áureo de Paula, 2015. "Econometrics of network models," CeMMAP working papers CWP52/15, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    20. Aliaksandr Amialchuk & Olugbenga Ajilore & Kevin Egan, 2019. "The influence of misperceptions about social norms on substance use among school‐aged adolescents," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 736-747, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Health Economics and Policy;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:saea16:229803. 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/saeaaea.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.