School Energy Consumption and Children’s Obesity: Evidence from China

Shangrong Han, Bo Han (), Yan Zhu, Xiaojie Liu and Limin Fu
Additional contact information
Shangrong Han: School of Statistics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Bo Han: School of Statistics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Yan Zhu: College of Physical Education and Sports, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Xiaojie Liu: School of Statistics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Limin Fu: Department of Sport Arts, Hebei Sport University, Shijiazhuang 050041, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: Rising obesity rates may lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, undermining carbon neutrality goals. However, evidence of the determinants of obesity from the perspective of energy economics is relatively limited. We contribute to the literature on the determinants of obesity by empirically studying the relationship between the school energy consumption and children’s BMI. Based on a combined dataset of Chinese children’s physical health data, kindergarten energy consumption data, and kindergarten geographic information data, we find that school energy consumption is negatively correlated with obesity, and there is considerable heterogeneity in the relationship of school energy consumption between kindergartens in cold areas and severe cold areas and between young girls and young boys. Our results are robust to alternative modeling techniques, the inclusion of additional control variables, and unobservable potential effects. We also find that children’s exercise ability is an important transmission channel between school heating and the probability of obesity.

Keywords: energy consumption; children’s obesity; exercise ability; heating policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/10/8226/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/10/8226/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:10:p:8226-:d:1150108

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().