Food environment and childhood obesity: The effect of dollar stores

Andreas Drichoutis, Rodolfo Nayga, Heather L. Rouse and Michael R. Thomsen

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: In this paper we examine the effect of dollar stores on children's Body Mass Index (BMI). We use a dataset compiled by the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement which created and implemented the BMI screening process for all public school children in the state of Arkansas. We combine propensity score matching with difference-in-differences methods to deal with time-invariant as well time-varying unobserved factors. We find no evidence that the presence of dollar stores within a reasonably close proximity of the child's residence increases BMI. In fact, we see an increase in BMI when dollar stores leave a child's neighborhood. Given the proliferation of dollar stores in rural and low-income urban areas, the question of how dollar stores could contribute to dietary health should be considered in efforts to combat childhood obesity.

Keywords: Childhood obesity; foot-at-home; propensity score matching; difference-in-difference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C31 C33 D10 I10 R1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-04-02, Revised 2015-02-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-mfd and nep-ure
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Related works:
Journal Article: Food environment and childhood obesity: the effect of dollar stores (2015)
Working Paper: Food environment and childhood obesity: The effect of dollar stores (2014)
Working Paper: Food environment and childhood obesity: The effect of dollar stores (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:62390

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