Start Date: September 2011

ID #: 69294

Principal Investigator: Matthew Harding, PhD

Co-Principal Investigator: Michael Lovenheim, PhD

Organization: Stanford University

Funding Round: Round 6

See more related research

Share


The impact of family food purchasing on child obesity is understudied, and little is known about the roles that consumer shopping behavior and local prices for goods with different nutritional content play in determining obesity prevalence. This project will use unique, nationally-representative scanned UPC data collected by Nielsen over a 12-year period on consumer grocery purchases and health to examine the role prices and local purchase environments (such as store density) play in determining the nutritional content of goods purchased and the resulting effects on obesity. Investigators will conduct a health behavior survey of families with children from the Nielsen Homescan panel, collecting additional measurements on individual-level health outcomes, food consumed outside the home, as well as exercise and other behaviors. A descriptive analysis will be conducted to examine how nutritional bundles from grocery purchases, prices paid for food items, food purchases outside the home, exercise behaviors and obesity status co-vary with each other and how these relationships change with household socioeconomic status. Causal effects of local food purchasing environments and food prices on the nutrient intake of households will be identified. To the extent that higher prices or the lack of accessible grocery stores play a role in reducing the nutritional quality of household purchases, these analyses will provide evidence on the scope of possible economic interventions.

Related Research

July 2014

Within-Family Obesity Associations: Evaluation of Parent, Child, and Sibling Relationships

This paper examines how the obesity status of different children within the same family is related to a parent or sibling’s obesity. Analyzing results of a 2011 national survey of adults in 10,244 U.S. households, researchers found that the likelihood of childhood obesity varied with the number of children in a household, as well as More

January 2014

The Effect of Prices on Nutrition: Comparing the Impact of Product- and Nutrient-Specific Taxes

This paper analyzes the role of prices in determining food purchases and nutrition using a detailed transaction-level observation for a large, nationally-representative sample of U.S. consumers over the years 2002-2007. Using structural demand estimates, researchers simulated the effect of a 20 percent product tax on soda, other sugar-sweetened beverages, packaged meals, and snacks, and 20 More

November 2023

Evaluating the impact of state-level economic-support policies on the nutritional health of kids and families

To address ongoing concerns of child poverty across the United States, states have introduced and modified family economic security policies related to the state minimum wage (MW) and state earned income tax credit (EITC). While poor nutritional health disproportionately impacts children who experience poverty, few studies have examined the potentially beneficial effects of state-level MW More