Premium
High School Physical Education Requirements and Youth Body Weight: New Evidence from the YRBS
Author(s) -
Sabia Joseph J.,
Nguyen Thanh Tam,
Rosenberg Oren
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.3399
Subject(s) - body weight , youth risk behavior survey , psychology , physical activity , energy requirement , state (computer science) , demography , environmental health , gerontology , demographic economics , poison control , injury prevention , medicine , economics , sociology , physical therapy , mathematics , algorithm , regression , psychoanalysis
Previous research has found that high school physical education (PE) requirements are largely ineffective at reducing youth body weight. However, these studies were forced to rely on cross‐state variation in PE requirements to identify their impacts, raising concerns that estimated policy effects may be confounded by state‐level unobservables. Using data from the State and National Youth Risk Behavior Surveys and exploiting recent changes in state high school PE laws, we re‐examine the effect of PE requirements on body weight. Our estimates show that a one‐semester increase in PE requirements is associated with a 10 to 13% increase in minutes per week spent physically active in PE classes, but with no change in net vigorous exercise and little change in youth body weight. We conclude that substitution of in‐school for outside‐of‐school physical activity and small resultant net energy expenditures can explain the absence of body weight effects. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.