There is a clear correlation between children’s body-mass-index (BMI) and the price of food and drink, according to new government-backed research.The study, The Effect of Food and Beverage Prices on Children’s Weights , “supports the idea that food prices have small, but statistically significant effects on children’s BMI” conclude the authors.
“Lower prices for soda, starchy vegetables, and sweet snacks have likely led to increases in children’s BMI. The reverse is true for some healthier foods such as low-fat milk and dark green vegetables… The effect of subsidizing healthy food may be just as large as raising prices of less healthy foods.”
Conducted by Minh Wendt and Jessica Todd for USDA’s economic research service, the study contributes to a growing body of research exploring price elasticity (the extent to which changes in price impact consumption) for foods and drinks, and follows calls for soda taxes to combat obesity.
The authors looked at how prices of carbonated sweetened beverages, fruit drinks, 100% juices, low-fat milk, whole and 2% milk, starchy veg (corn, potatoes), dark green veg (spinach and broccoli), and sweet snacks affected BMI among a cohort of US children as they age from 5 to 14 years old.
They did this by linking average retail food prices (from the Quarterly Food-at-Home Price Database) with data on kids’ body mass index (BMI) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99.
Read the full study here
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