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Author: Fan, Maoyong
Resulting in 4 citations.
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Fan, Maoyong |
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Do Food Stamps Contribute to Obesity in Low-Income Women? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 American Journal of Agricultural Economics 92,4 (July 2010): 1165-1180. Also: http://ideas.repec.org/p/bsu/wpaper/201005.html Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Inc. => Wiley Online Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Economics of Gender; Family Planning; Fertility; Food Stamps (see Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program); Income; Obesity; Poverty; Wages, Women This article estimates the effects of food stamp benefits on obesity, overweight and body mass index of low-income women. My analysis differs from previous research in three aspects. First, we exploit a rich longitudinal dataset, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, to distinguish between full-time and part-time participation. Second, instead of making parametric assumptions on outcomes, we employ a variety of difference-in-difference matching estimators to control for selection bias. Third, we estimate both short-term (one-year participation) and long-term (three-year participation) treatment effects. We find little evidence that food stamps are responsible for obesity in female participants. |
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Bibliography Citation
Fan, Maoyong. "Do Food Stamps Contribute to Obesity in Low-Income Women? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979." American Journal of Agricultural Economics 92,4 (July 2010): 1165-1180.
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Fan, Maoyong |
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Essays on Health Economics and Agricultural Labor Migration Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 2009 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Food Stamps (see Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program); Obesity; Poverty Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. The first essay of the dissertation, entitled "Do Food Stamps Contribute to Obesity in Low-Income Women?" estimates the effects of food stamps on obesity, overweight and body mass index (BMI) of low-income women. This question is particularly important because participants are substantially more likely to be obese than are nonparticipants. Our analysis differs from previous research in three aspects. First, we exploit a rich longitudinal data set, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), to distinguish between full-time and part-time participation. Second, instead of making parametric assumptions on outcomes, we employ a variety of difference-in-difference matching estimators to control for selection bias. Third, we estimate both short-term (one year of participation) and long-term (three years of participation) treatment effects. Empirical results show that, after controlling for selection bias and defining the treatment and comparison groups carefully, there is little evidence that food stamps are responsible for obesity or higher BMI in female participants. Our estimates are robust to different definitions of the treatment and comparison groups and to various matching algorithms. We further examine prior studies and apply their methods to our samples. We repeat analyses of previous studies using our sample and find that prior studies significantly overstate the causal relationship between the FSP and obesity. |
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Bibliography Citation
Fan, Maoyong. Essays on Health Economics and Agricultural Labor Migration. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 2009. |
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Fan, Maoyong Jin, Yanhong |
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Obesity and Self-control: Food Consumption, Physical Activity, and Weight-loss Intention Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 36,1 (2014): 125-145. Also: http://aepp.oxfordjournals.org/content/36/1/125 Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97 Publisher: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Keyword(s): Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS); Body Mass Index (BMI); Exercise; Food Stamps (see Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program); National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES); Obesity; Physical Activity (see also Exercise); Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control); Self-Control/Self-Regulation Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. We find that despite a stronger intention to lose weight, overweight and obese individuals in the United States are less likely to meet the federal recommendations for fruit and vegetable consumption, energy and nutrient intakes, and physical activity than are normal-weight individuals. By utilizing the Rotter score that measures self-control capability, we find that obese individuals exhibit a lower degree of self-control than normal-weight individuals, and that this lack of self-control is associated with poor eating and exercise behaviors, as well as increased Body Mass Index and obesity risk. We discuss three mechanisms that are regularly employed to overcome self-control problems: physician advice, improvement in the built environment, and commitment devices. Our results suggest that knowledge-based anti-obesity intervention policies are likely to have limited effects. |
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Bibliography Citation
Fan, Maoyong and Yanhong Jin. "Obesity and Self-control: Food Consumption, Physical Activity, and Weight-loss Intention." Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 36,1 (2014): 125-145.
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Fan, Maoyong Jin, Yanhong |
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The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Childhood Obesity in the United States: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 American Journal of Health Economics 1,4 (Fall 2015): 432-460. Also: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/AJHE_a_00025#.VqENNUbqV4w Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: American Society of Health Economists (ASHE) Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Child Health; Obesity; Propensity Scores; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps) Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, this paper employs difference-in-difference propensity score matching to examine whether the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) contributes to childhood obesity. We find no statistically significant SNAP effect among the 12- to 20-year-old participants when controlling for selection bias and more accurately defining the treatment and comparison groups. The results are robust to various robustness checks including redefining the treatment and comparison groups by excluding those who previously enrolled in the SNAP, using an alternative treatment definition based on SNAP benefits received, using different specifications of the propensity score equation, and employing different estimation techniques (covariate matching and inverse probability weighting). The robustness analyses regarding unobservables also find no statistically significant SNAP effects. This study differs from previous research in three major aspects. First, we carefully examine the intensity of SNAP participation (full-time versus part-time) and the amount of SNAP benefits received for one-, two-, and three-year durations. Second, we focus on the change in the BMI (body mass index) or the obesity status rather than the level and control for the pretreatment BMI to avoid the confounding effects of the time-invariant factors. Third, instead of making parametric assumptions on the outcomes, we employ a variety of semiparametric estimators to control for the selection bias of program participation. The results show that the SNAP is not responsible for the higher prevalence of obesity among adolescents of low-income households. Proposed SNAP changes such as more frequent benefit distribution and a focus on fresh fruits and vegetables are likely to be ineffective in reducing childhood obesity, although they might encourage healthy dietary practices among SNAP participants. |
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Bibliography Citation
Fan, Maoyong and Yanhong Jin. "The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Childhood Obesity in the United States: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997." American Journal of Health Economics 1,4 (Fall 2015): 432-460.
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