IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6807.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Physical Education on Obesity among Elementary School Children

Author

Listed:
  • Cawley, John

    (Cornell University)

  • Frisvold, David E.

    (University of Iowa)

  • Meyerhoefer, Chad D.

    (Lehigh University)

Abstract

In response to the dramatic rise in childhood obesity, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other organizations have advocated increasing the time that elementary school children spend in physical education (PE) classes. However, little is known about the effect of PE on child weight. This paper measures that effect by instrumenting for child PE time with state policies, using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) for 1998-2004. Results from IV models indicate that PE lowers BMI z-score and reduces the probability of obesity among 5th graders (in particular, boys), while the instrument is insufficiently powerful to reliably estimate effects for younger children. This represents some of the first evidence of a causal effect of PE on youth obesity, and thus offers at least some support to the assumptions behind the CDC recommendations. We find no evidence that increased PE time crowds out time in academic courses or has spillovers to achievement test scores.

Suggested Citation

  • Cawley, John & Frisvold, David E. & Meyerhoefer, Chad D., 2012. "The Impact of Physical Education on Obesity among Elementary School Children," IZA Discussion Papers 6807, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6807
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp6807.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Datar, A. & Sturm, R., 2004. "Physical education in elementary school and body mass index: Evidence from the early childhood longitudinal study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 94(9), pages 1501-1506.
    2. Youth, 2005. "Preventing Childhood Obesity Health in the Balance," Mathematica Policy Research Reports ce206c664e4e4d95a510b0692, Mathematica Policy Research.
    3. John Cawley & Chad Meyerhoefer & David Newhouse, 2007. "The impact of state physical education requirements on youth physical activity and overweight," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(12), pages 1287-1301, December.
    4. Stock, James H & Wright, Jonathan H & Yogo, Motohiro, 2002. "A Survey of Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Generalized Method of Moments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(4), pages 518-529, October.
    5. Cawley, John & Ruhm, Christopher J., 2011. "The Economics of Risky Health Behaviors," Handbook of Health Economics, in: Mark V. Pauly & Thomas G. Mcguire & Pedro P. Barros (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 95-199, Elsevier.
    6. Dills, Angela K. & Morgan, Hillary N. & Rotthoff, Kurt W., 2011. "Recess, physical education, and elementary school student outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 889-900, October.
    7. Gary Solon & Steven J. Haider & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2015. "What Are We Weighting For?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 301-316.
    8. 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.
    9. Committee on Prevention of Obesity in Children & Youth of which Robert C. Whitaker is a member, "undated". "Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 655b9b55a39f4db1a879cc8bb, Mathematica Policy Research.
    10. repec:mpr:mprres:6209 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. John Cawley & Chad Meyerhoefer & David Newhouse, 2007. "The impact of state physical education requirements on youth physical activity and overweight," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(12), pages 1287-1301.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Steven Bednar & Kathryn Rouse, 2020. "The effect of physical education on children's body weight and human capital: New evidence from the ECLS‐K:2011," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(4), pages 393-405, April.
    2. Dimitrios Nikolaou & Laura M. Crispin, 2022. "Estimating the effects of sports and physical exercise on bullying," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(2), pages 283-303, April.
    3. Cawley, John & Liu, Feng, 2012. "Maternal employment and childhood obesity: A search for mechanisms in time use data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 352-364.
    4. John Cawley & Chad Meyerhoefer & David Newhouse, 2007. "The impact of state physical education requirements on youth physical activity and overweight," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(12), pages 1287-1301, December.
    5. John Cawley & Chad Meyerhoefer & David Newhouse, 2007. "The impact of state physical education requirements on youth physical activity and overweight," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(12), pages 1287-1301.
    6. Knaus, Michael C. & Lechner, Michael & Reimers, Anne K., 2020. "For better or worse? – The effects of physical education on child development," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    7. John Cawley & John Moran & Kosali Simon, 2010. "The impact of income on the weight of elderly Americans," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(8), pages 979-993, August.
    8. Packham, Analisa & Street, Brittany, 2019. "The effects of physical education on student fitness, achievement, and behavior," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-18.
    9. Black, Nicole & Johnston, David W. & Propper, Carol & Shields, Michael A., 2019. "The effect of school sports facilities on physical activity, health and socioeconomic status in adulthood," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 120-128.
    10. Cawley, John, 2008. "Contingent valuation analysis of willingness to pay to reduce childhood obesity," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 281-292, July.
    11. Grace Lordan & Debayan Pakrashi, 2015. "Do All Activities “Weigh” Equally? How Different Physical Activities Differ as Predictors of Weight," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(11), pages 2069-2086, November.
    12. Bart H. H. Golsteyn & Maria W. J. Jansen & Dave H. H. Van Kann & Annelore M. C. Verhagen, 2020. "Does Stimulating Physical Activity Affect School Performance?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(1), pages 64-95, January.
    13. Fahey, Tony & Delaney, Liam & Gannon, Brenda, 2005. "School Children and Sport in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BMI182.
    14. Cawley, John, 2015. "An economy of scales: A selective review of obesity's economic causes, consequences, and solutions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 244-268.
    15. Sarrias, Mauricio & Blanco, Alejandra, 2022. "Bodyweight and human capital development: Assessing the impact of obesity on socioemotional skills during childhood in Chile," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    16. Kabir Dasgupta & Keshar M. Ghimire & Gail Pacheco, 2018. "The impact of smoking during pregnancy on children's body weight," Working Papers 2018-04, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    17. Toni Mora & Joan Gil, 2013. "Peer Effects In Adolescent Bmi: Evidence From Spain," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(5), pages 501-516, May.
    18. Chang, Chaeyoung & Jung, Haeil, 2017. "The role of formal schooling on weight in young children," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-12.
    19. Wendt, Minh, 2008. "Economic, Environmental, and Endowment Effects on Childhood Obesity," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6571, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    20. John Cawley & Chad Meyerhoefer & David Newhouse, 2007. "The Correlation Of Youth Physical Activity With State Policies," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 25(4), pages 506-517, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    obesity; physical activity; physical education; children; health;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law

    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:iza:izadps:dp6807. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.