Does proximity to fast food cause childhood obesity? Evidence from public housing

Jeehee Han, Amy Schwartz and Brian Elbel

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2020, vol. 84, issue C

Abstract: We examine the causal link between proximity to fast food and the incidence of childhood obesity among low-income households in New York City. Using individual-level longitudinal data on students living in public housing linked to restaurant location data, we exploit the naturally occurring within-development variation in distance to fast food restaurants to estimate the impact of proximity on obesity. Since the assignment of households to specific buildings is based upon availability at the time of assignment to public housing, the distance between student residence and retail outlets—including fast food restaurants, wait-service restaurants, supermarkets, and corner stores—is plausibly random. Our credibly causal estimates suggest that childhood obesity increases with proximity to fast food, with larger effects for younger children who attend neighborhood schools.

Keywords: Urban neighborhoods; Food environment; Child health and obesity; Public housing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 J13 L83 R38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046220302507
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Does Proximity to Fast Food Cause Childhood Obesity? Evidence from Public Housing (2020)
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:eee:regeco:v:84:y:2020:i:c:s0166046220302507

DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2020.103565

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Science and Urban Economics is currently edited by D.P McMillen and Y. Zenou

More articles in Regional Science and Urban Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().