Reading, writing, and raisinets: are school finances contributing to children’s obesity?

The proportion of adolescents in the United States who are obese has nearly tripled over the last two decades. At the same time, schools, often citing financial pressures, have given students greater access to “junk” foods and soda pop, using proceeds from these sales to fund school programs. We examine whether schools under financial pressure are more likely to adopt potentially unhealthful food policies. Next, we examine whether students’ Body Mass Index (BMI) is higher in counties where a greater proportion of schools are predicted to allow these food policies. Because the financial pressure variables that predict school food policies are unlikely to affect BMI directly, this two step estimation strategy addresses the potential endogeneity of school food policies. ; We find that a 10 percentage point increase in the proportion of schools in a county that allow students access to junk food leads to about a one percent increase in students’ BMI, on average. However, this average effect is entirely driven by adolescents who have an overweight parent, for whom the effect of such food policies is much larger (2.2%). This suggests that those adolescents who have a genetic or family susceptibility to obesity are most affected by the school food environment. A rough calculation suggests that the increase in availability of junk foods in schools can account for about one-fifth of the increase in average BMI among adolescents over the last decade.Overweight children ; Education ; Junk food

Reading, Writing and Raisinets: Are School Finances Contributing to Children's Obesity?

The proportion of adolescents in the United States who are obese has nearly tripled over the last two decades. At the same time, schools, often citing financial pressures, have given students greater access to "junk" foods, using proceeds from the sales to fund school programs. We examine whether schools under financial pressure are more likely to adopt potentially unhealthful food policies. We find that a 10 percentage point increase in the probability of access to junk food leads to about a one percent increase in students' body mass index (BMI). However, this average effect is entirely driven by adolescents who have an overweight parent, for whom the effect of such food policies is much larger (2.2%). This suggests that those adolescents who have a genetic or family susceptibility to obesity are most affected by the school food environment. A rough calculation suggests that the increase in availability of junk foods in schools can account for about one-fifth of the increase in average BMI among adolescents over the last decade.

Maternal employment and overweight children

This paper seeks to determine whether a causal relationship exists between maternal employment and childhood overweight. We use matched mother/child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and employ econometric techniques to control for observable and unobservable differences across individuals and families that may influence both children's weight and their mothers' work patterns. Our results indicate that a child is more likely to be overweight if his/her mother worked more hours per week over the child's life. Analyses by subgroups show that it is higher socioeconomic status mothers whose work intensity is particularly deleterious for their children's overweight status.Employment (Economic theory) ; Overweight children

Maternal Employment and Overweight Children

This paper investigates whether children are more or less likely to be overweight if their mothers work. The prevalence of both overweight children and working mothers has risen dramatically over the past few decades, although these parallel trends may be coincidental. The goal of this paper is to help determine whether a causal relationship exists between maternal employment and childhood overweight. To accomplish this, we mainly utilize matched mother/child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and employ three main econometric techniques, probit models, sibling difference models, and instrumental variables models in this analysis. Our results indicate that a child is more likely to be overweight if his/her mother worked more intensively (in the form of greater hours per week) over the child's life. This effect is particularly evident for children of white mothers, of mothers with more education, and of mothers with a high income level. Applying our estimates to the trend towards greater maternal employment indicates that the increased hours worked per week among mothers between 1975 and 1999 led to about a 0.4 to 0.7 percentage point increase in overweight children, which represents a relatively small share of the overall increase.

Childhood Disadvantage and Obesity: Is Nurture Trumping Nature?

Obesity has been one of the fastest growing health concerns among children, particularly among disadvantaged children. For children overall, obesity rates have tripled from 5% in the early 1970s to about 15% by the early 2000s. For disadvantaged children, obesity rates are closer to 20%. In this paper, we first examine the impact of various measures of disadvantage on children's weight outcomes over the past 30 years, finding that the disadvantaged have gained weight faster. Over the same period, adult obesity rates have grown, and we expect parental obesity to be closely tied to children's obesity, for reasons of both nature and nurture. Thus, examining changes in the parent-child correlation in BMI should give us some insight into the ways in which the environment that parents and children share has affected children's body mass, or into how the interaction of genes and environment has changed. We find that the elasticity between mothers' and children's BMI has increased since the 1970s, suggesting that shared genetic-environmental factors have become more important in determining obesity. Despite the faster weight gain for the disadvantaged, there appears to be no clear difference for by disadvantaged group in either the parent-child elasticity or in identifiable environmental factors. On average, the increases in parents' BMI between the early 1970s and the early 2000s can explain about 37 percent of the increase in children's BMI. Although common environmental/genetic factors play a larger role now than in earlier time periods, child specific environments such as schools and day care play a potentially important role in determining children's health status.

Economic perspectives on childhood obesity

Obesity rates in the U.S. have skyrocketed in the last 30 years. Among adults, obesity rates more than doubled from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. Children obesity rates nearly tripled over the same period. This article discusses why obesity is of interest from an economic perspective. It them examines changes in children's lives, particularly the increase in maternal employment, that may have contributed to increases in children's weight.Overweight children

An Investigation into What Planning Departments and Water Authorities Can Learn from Eleven Communities' Waterwise Landscaping Ordinances

In the United States we are using billions of gallons more water every day than is replenished by the hydrological cycle. Because water applied to landscaping is often the single largest use of the water supplied by most water utilities in areas requiring landscape irrigation, planners and water authorities are adopting ordinances that reduce the amount of water required by landscaping. This report focuses on ordinances which require or encourage the use of waterwise plants and/or that limit the area of lawns or offer incentives for reducing lawn area. I analyzed eleven ordinances from eight states (Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and Washington) and interviewed twelve planners and eight landscape architects from ten of these communities. This report provides information on the many options available in waterwise landscaping ordinances, how various ordinance elements are enforced in real life, the advantages and disadvantages of various elements, and landscape architects’ and planners’ views and recommendations. In addition to my analysis and recommendations, the report includes a literature review that is a primer on water shortage issues, the relationship between landscapes and water consumption, and the theory of waterwise landscaping ordinances; a matrix comparing the eleven ordinances and community factors (such as evapotranspiration and cost of water); and a compendium of 25 waterwise landscaping ordinance elements

Emotional Responses to a Sexual Assault Threat: A Qualitative Analysis Among Women With Histories of Sexual Victimization

Sexual assaults against women are a leading threat to human rights and public health in the United States. Considering the high rates of sexual revictimization among women and the limited understanding of the mechanisms which fuel this phenomenon, the goal of the present study was to investigate the role of emotion in coping with a hypothetical threat of sexual assault for previously sexually victimized college women. A total of 114 college women with a history of sexual victimization listened to an audio-recording describing a sexual assault scenario and then described how they felt. A qualitative analysis paradigm was used to capture participants’ responses in an open-ended, real-time, experiential manner. Data were analyzed using Consensual Qualitative Research—Modified methodology. Four main themes emerged (Negative Reactions, Indifferent Evaluations, Active Responses, and Cognitive Appraisal of the Situation), along with various subcategories, demonstrating the variability of women’s responses to a sexual assault threat. Many women experienced uncomfortable or distressing emotional reactions to the vignette, primarily through discomfort, but also through anger, anxiety, and being upset. Few women reported experiencing fear, and a small number reported experiencing self-blame. The low endorsement of fear and anger in our high-risk sample indicates emotional dysregulation as a potential mechanism of repeated sexual victimization and a promising target for clinical intervention. Overall, results may inform sexual assault risk reduction efforts and the empowerment of women who have experienced sexual victimization

Perinatal Symptoms and Treatment Engagement in Female Veterans

INTRODUCTION: Women veterans using Veterans Health Care Administration maternity benefits have a high prevalence of mental health disorders, including depression, PTSD, and anxiety. Additionally, women with psychiatric histories often experience a relapse or worsening of symptoms during pregnancy and postpartum. Adequate perinatal mental healthcare engagement is critical to optimizing outcomes for mother and child. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study evaluated psychiatric symptom severity and predictors of women veteran\u27s mental health treatment engagement during pregnancy and postpartum at the VA North Texas Health Care System. Seventy women using Veterans Health Administration were assessed longitudinally via chart review and interviews (including the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale) during pregnancy and postpartum. A Friedman test was used to evaluate the change in symptom severity during (1) the 6 months before pregnancy, (2) pregnancy, and (3) postpartum. Multivariate logistic regressions were used to determine predictors of attending outpatient mental health appointments. Potential predictors examined included sociodemographic factors, symptoms of depression, history of military sexual assault, presence of a pre-pregnancy psychiatric diagnosis, and attendance of mental health appointments before pregnancy. RESULTS: Approximately 40% of participants demonstrated at least mild psychiatric symptoms before pregnancy, and symptom severity did not significantly change across the perinatal period (pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, and postpartum) X2 (2, n = 70) = 3.56, P = .17. Depressive symptoms during the 2nd or 3rd trimester were a significant predictor for attendance of mental health appointments during both pregnancy (OR = 1.18, 95% CI, 1.04 to 1.34) and postpartum (OR = 1.18, 95% CI, 1.02 to 1.36). An active psychiatric diagnosis during the 6 months before pregnancy was also a significant predictor of attendance following delivery (OR = 14.63, 95% CI, 1.55 to 138.51). CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrate that women with prior histories of mental health conditions will continue to be symptomatic, and this is a good predictor of mental health treatment engagement during the perinatal period. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US