Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Purpose:

This paper examines the effect of boarding on obesity among middle school students at boarding schools.

Design:

Quantitative, cross-sectional study.

Setting:

Data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) were analyzed. The CEPS samples middle school students from 7th grade to 9th grade in China.

Subjects:

The final sample included 3,892 observations of boarding school students.

Measures:

Measures included body mass index (BMI) that determined obesity, boarding status, demographic information, and instruments for boarding status.

Analysis:

The instrumental variables approach based on the 2 stage least squares (2SLS) methodology was utilized. The endogenous models and the extended probit models were also applied to the data to confirm the robustness of the results.

Results:

Boarding has a significant negative effect on obesity for middle school boys but a smaller negative effect on obesity for middle school girls. Boarding was estimated to reduce obesity by roughly 14% (p < 0.01) among middle school boys and 6% (p > 0.1) among middle school girls. The overall estimated effect based on the pooled sample was about 10% (p < 0.01).

Conclusion:

School or government policies that encourage boarding at school can reduce obesity among middle school students, at least for middle school boys. Boarding at school can be a positive factor in preventing and controlling obesity among middle school students.

Keywords

boarding cross-sectional instrumental variables middle school students childhood obesity

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Curto

Fryer

. The potential of urban boarding schools for the poor: evidence from SEED. J Labor Econ. 2014;32(1):65–93.

Behaghel

de Chaisemartin

Gurgand

. Ready for boarding? The effects of a boarding school for disadvantaged students. Am Econ J Appl Econ. 2017;9(1):140–164.

Martin

Papworth

Ginns

Liem

GAD

. Boarding school, academic motivation and engagement, and psychological well-being: a large-scale investigation. Am Educ Res J. 2014;51(5):1007–1049.

Daniels

. The consequences of childhood overweight and obesity. Future Child. 2006;16(1):47–67.

Must

Strauss

. Risks and consequences of childhood and adolescent obesity. Int J Obes. 1999;23(suppl 2):S2–S11.

Wang

Veugelers

. Self-esteem and cognitive development in the era of the childhood obesity epidemic. Obes Rev. 2008;9(6):615–623.

Carey

Singh

Brown

Wilkinson

. Educational outcomes associated with childhood obesity in the United States: cross-sectional results from the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children’s Health. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2015;12(suppl 1):S3.

Hedley

Ogden

Johnson

Carroll

Curtin

Flegal

. Prevalence of overweight and obesity among US children, adolescents, and adults, 1999-2002. JAMA. 2004;291(23):2847–2850.

Topalidou

Dafopoulou

. Obesity prevention for junior high school students: an intervention programme. J Phys Educ Sport. 2013;13(24):147–152.

10.

CDC National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Prevalence of obesity among adults and youth: United States. Published 2017. Accessed November 30, 2019. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db288.pdf

11.

Sun

Han

Pan

. Prevalence and trends in obesity among China’s children and adolescents, 1985–2010. PLoS One. 2014;9(8);e105469.

12.

Zeng

Duan

, et al. Secular growth trends among children in Beijing (1955-2010). Econo Hum Biol. 2016;21:210–220.

13.

Zhou

Zhang

Wang

Zhang

. Prevalence of overweight and obesity in Chinese children and adolescents from 2015. Ann Hum Biol. 2017;44(7):642–643.

14.

Zhang

Wang

, et al. Prevalence and stabilizing trends in overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in China, 2011-2015. BMC Public Health. 2018;18(1):571.

15.

Shu

Tong

. Boarding at school and students’ well-being: the case of rural China. Published 2015. Accessed November 30, 2019. http://paa2015.princeton.edu/abstracts/151181

16.

OECD. Country Note: Education at a glance. Published 2016. Accessed November 30, 2019. http://gpseducation.oecd.org/Content/EAGCountryNotes/EAG2016_CN_CHN.pdf

17.

Zong

. Body mass index cut-offs for overweight and obesity in Chinese children and adolescents aged 2-18 years. Chin J Epidemiol. 2010;31(6):616–620.

18.

Newton

Braithwaite

Akinyemiju

. Socio-economic status over the life course and obesity: systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2017;12(5):e0177151.

19.

Pigeyre

Rousseaux

Trouiller

, et al. How obesity relates to socio-economic status: identification of eating behavior mediators. Int J Obes. 2016;40(11):1794–1801.

20.

Dolton

Xiao

. The intergenerational transmission of BMI in China. Econ Hum Biol. 2015;19: 90–113.

21.

Angrist

Pischke

. Mostly Harmless Econometrics. 1st ed. Princeton University Press; 2009.

22.

Angrist

Imbens

Rubin

. Identification of causal effects using instrumental variables. J Am Stat Assoc. 1996;91(434):444–472.

23.

Baiocchi

Cheng

Small

. Tutorial in biostatistics: instrumental variable methods for causal inference. Stat Med. 2014;33(13):2297–2340.

24.

Giovanni

ivtreatreg: a command for fitting binary treatment models with heterogeneous response to treatment and unobservable selection. Stata J. 2014;14(3):453–480.

25.

Eteffects—endogenous treatment-effects estimation. Published 2017. Accessed November 30, 2019. https://www.stata.com/manuals/teeteffects.pdf

26.

Etregress—linear regression with endogenous treatment effects. Published 2017. Accessed November 30, 2019. https://www.stata.com/manuals/teetregress.pdf

27.

Eprobit—extended probit regression. Published 2017. Accessed November 30, 2019. https://www.stata.com/manuals/ermeprobit.pdf

28.

Telford

Olive LS Cochrane

Davey

. Why are girls less physically active than boys? Findings from the LOOK longitudinal study. PLoS One. 2016;11(3):e0150041.

29.

Larson

Wall

Story

Neumark-Sztainer

. Home/family, peer, school, and neighborhood correlates of obesity in adolescents. Obesity. 2013;21(9):1858–1869.

30.

Borgan

Carcone

Jen

KLC

Ellis

Marshall

Naar-King

. Factors associated with weight resilience in obesogenic environments in female African-American adolescents. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2012;112(5):718–724.

31.

Agmon

Zlotnick

Finkelstein

. The relationship between mentoring on healthy behaviors and well-being among Israeli youth in boarding schools: a mixed-methods study. BMC Pediatr. 2015;15:11.

32.

Ickovics

Duffany

Shebl

, et al. Implementing school-based policies to prevent obesity: cluster randomized trial. Am J Prev Med. 2019;56(1):e1–e11.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.02 MB

The Effect of Boarding on Obesity Among Middle School Students: Evidence From China

Abstract

Purpose:

Design:

Setting:

Subjects:

Measures:

Analysis:

Results:

Conclusion:

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material