IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/16148.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Child and Adult Care Food Program: Who is Served and What are Their Nutritional Outcomes?

Author

Listed:
  • Rachel A. Gordon
  • Robert Kaestner
  • Sanders Korenman
  • Kristin Abner

Abstract

This paper addresses three basic questions about an under-studied food subsidy program, the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP): (1) Does CACFP reach targeted low-income children? (2) How do eligible families and child care providers who participate differ from those who do not participate? (3) What is the association between attending CACFP-participating child care and children's food intake, weight, and food security? We use the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort to examine these questions for a representative sample of young children and their providers. We find that program eligibility rules leave many poor children outside the CACFP program. Yet, among poor preschoolers in center-based care, participation in the program is correlated with positive outcomes such as increased consumption of milk and vegetables, and healthier weight (BMI). We discuss the implications of our findings, especially in relation to other food and child care subsidy programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Rachel A. Gordon & Robert Kaestner & Sanders Korenman & Kristin Abner, 2010. "The Child and Adult Care Food Program: Who is Served and What are Their Nutritional Outcomes?," NBER Working Papers 16148, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16148
    Note: CH EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16148.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sandra L. Hofferth & Sally Curtin, 2005. "Poverty, food programs, and childhood obesity," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(4), pages 703-726.
    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. Kyung Min Kang & Robert A. Moffitt, 2019. "The Effect of SNAP and School Food Programs on Food Security, Diet Quality, and Food Spending: Sensitivity to Program Reporting Error," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(1), pages 156-201, July.
    2. Daniel L. Millimet & Rusty Tchernis & Muna Husain, 2010. "School Nutrition Programs and the Incidence of Childhood Obesity," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(3).
    3. Joseph J. Sabia & Thanh Tam Nguyen & Oren Rosenberg, 2017. "High School Physical Education Requirements and Youth Body Weight: New Evidence from the YRBS," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(10), pages 1291-1306, October.
    4. Gregg, Paul & Propper, Carol & Washbrook, Elizabeth, 2007. "Understanding the relationship between parental income and multiple child outcomes: a decomposition analysis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 6196, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Hudak, Katelin M. & Racine, Elizabeth F., 2021. "Do additional SNAP benefits matter for child weight?: Evidence from the 2009 benefit increase," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    6. von Hinke Kessler Scholder, Stephanie, 2013. "School meal crowd out in the 1980s," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 538-545.
    7. Almada, Lorenzo N. & Tchernis, Rusty, 2018. "Measuring effects of SNAP on obesity at the intensive margin," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 150-163.
    8. Ehmke, Mariah D. & Willson, Tina M. & Schroeter, Christiane & Hart, Ann Marie & Coupal, Roger H., 2009. "Obesity Economics for the Western United States," Western Economics Forum, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 8(2), pages 1-13.
    9. Upadhyaya, Shikha & Blocker, Christopher P. & Houston, H. Rika & Sims, Marjorie R., 2021. "Evolving two-generation services to disrupt the intergenerational effects of poverty and promote family well-being," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 324-335.
    10. repec:cep:sticas:/129 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Melissa Pflugh Prescott & Judith A. Gilbride & Sean P. Corcoran & Brian Elbel & Kathleen Woolf & Roland O. Ofori & Amy Ellen Schwartz, 2022. "The Relationship between School Infrastructure and School Nutrition Program Participation and Policies in New York City," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-12, August.
    12. Brown, Judith E. & Broom, Dorothy H. & Nicholson, Jan M. & Bittman, Michael, 2010. "Do working mothers raise couch potato kids? Maternal employment and children's lifestyle behaviours and weight in early childhood," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1816-1824, June.
    13. Matthew J. Salois & Kelvin G. Balcombe, 2015. "A Generalized Bayesian Instrumental Variable Approach under Student t-distributed Errors with Application," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83(5), pages 499-522, September.
    14. Zafar Nazarov & Michael S. Rendall, 2011. "Differences by Mother's Education in the Effect of Childcare on Child Obesity," Working Papers WR-890, RAND Corporation.
    15. Dubois, Lise & Farmer, Anna & Girard, Manon & Porcherie, Marion, 2006. "Family food insufficiency is related to overweight among preschoolers'," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 1503-1516, September.
    16. Chang, Hung-Hao, 2014. "Food Preparation for the School Lunch Program and Body Weight of Elementary School Children in Taiwan," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-16, February.
    17. Manan Roy & Daniel Millimet & Rusty Tchernis, 2012. "Federal nutrition programs and childhood obesity: inside the black box," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 1-38, March.
    18. Aryati Ahmad & Nurzaime Zulaily & Mohd Razif Shahril & Engku Fadzli Hasan Syed Abdullah & Amran Ahmed, 2018. "Association between socioeconomic status and obesity among 12-year-old Malaysian adolescents," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(7), pages 1-11, July.
    19. Tami Gurley-Calvez & Amy Higginbotham, 2010. "Childhood Obesity, Academic Achievement, and School Expenditures," Public Finance Review, , vol. 38(5), pages 619-646, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy

    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:nbr:nberwo:16148. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.