ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the economic aspects of childhood obesity. The first three sections discuss the economic causes and correlates of obesity in children and youth. The first section starts with a discussion of the recent literature on the impact of federal food assistance programs that provide subsidized food for low-income families. The next section discusses the evidence on how food prices, in particular the prices of energy-dense, nonnutritious foods and beverages relative to the prices of more nutritious foods and beverages, are related to children’s dietary intake and body weight outcomes. The third section describes the current evidence on how macroeconomic conditions, in particular economic downturns that are characterized by high unemployment rates, are related to children’s dietary intake and body weight outcomes. The fourth section discusses the evidence on one important economic consequence of obesity: higher medical care costs. Finally, the last section discusses what is known from economic evaluations of antiobesity interventions. The method of cost effectiveness has been used to estimate which programs give society the greatest “bang for the buck.” This section lists which interventions have been found to be cost saving, which are cost-effective (i.e., costly but considered good value), and which are not cost-effective (the benefits are small relative to the costs).
