TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kaestner,Robert
AU  - Grossman,Michael
TI  - Effects of Weight on Children's Educational Achievement
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13764
PY  - 2008
Y2  - January 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13764
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13764.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Robert Kaestner
Institute of Government and Public Affairs
University of Illinois
815 West Van Buren Street, Suite 525
Chicago, IL  60607
Tel: 312/996-8227
E-Mail: kaestner.robert@gmail.com

Michael Grossman
Ph.D. Program in Economics
City University of New York Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, 5th Floor
New York, NY  10016-4309
Tel: 212/817-7959
Fax: 212/817-1597
E-Mail: mgrossman@gc.cuny.edu
AB  - In this paper, we investigate the association between weight and children's educational achievement, as measured by scores on Peabody Individual Achievement Tests in math and reading, and grade attainment.  Data for the study came from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), which contains a large, national sample of children between the ages of 5 and 12.  We obtained estimates of the association between weight and achievement using several regression model specifications that controlled for a variety of observed characteristics of the child and his or her mother, and time-invariant characteristics of the child.  Our results suggest that, in general, children who are overweight or obese have achievement test scores that are about the same as children with average weight.
ER  -