Nutrition Information and Formal Schooling as Inputs to Child Nutrition

Webb, Patrick; Block, Steven A.

doi:10.1086/420901

Cited by 99 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 23 publications

(18 reference statements)

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“…This finding is similar to those from a study by Webb and Block (2004) showing higher WHZ for girls than boys in Indonesia. Using a sample of Ethiopian children, Outes and Porter (2013) also find that girls have higher catchup growth than boys in terms of height-for-age Z-score.…”

Section: (A) Determinants Of Weight-for-height Z-scoresupporting

confidence: 91%

“…This is contrary to findings in previous studies such as Lavy et al (1996) and Christiaensen and Alderman (2004). Our results are on the other hand similar with Webb and Block (2004) who argue that responses to education vary depending on whether one considers short-term or longterm nutrition indicator. In member households, coefficient estimates for household head education are not statistically significant.…”

Section: (A) Determinants Of Weight-for-height Z-scorecontrasting

confidence: 57%

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Does Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program improve child nutrition?

2015

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We study the link between Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) and short-run nutrition outcomes among children age 5 years and younger. We use 2006 and 2010 survey data from Northern Ethiopia to estimate parameters of an exogenous switching regression. This allows us to measure the differential impacts of household characteristics on weight-for-height Z-score of children in member and non-member households in PSNP. We find that the magnitude and significance of household covariates differ in samples of children from PSNP and non-PSNP households. Controlling for a set of observable features of children and households we find that children in member households have weight-for-height Z-scores that are 0.55 points higher than those of children in non-member households. We conclude that the PSNP is providing positive short-term nutritional benefits for children, especially in those households that are able to leverage underemployed female labor.

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Section: (A) Determinants Of Weight-for-height Z-scoresupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: (A) Determinants Of Weight-for-height Z-scorecontrasting

confidence: 57%

Does Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program improve child nutrition?

2015

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“…In addition, recognition of feedback between the agri-food sector and other systems, such as health and environment (below), can be critical for effective policy design. Indeed, such feedbacks may help to explain how efforts to reduce undernutrition in developing countries can have the double-edged effect of increasing levels of obesity in those same countries (79). Computational systems models can help to explicitly include both the heterogeneity and the feedback loops that result from the broader context in which agriculture functions.…”

Section: Agri-food Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

A systems science perspective and transdisciplinary models for food and nutrition security

Hammond

Dubé

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

179

143

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We argue that food and nutrition security is driven by complex underlying systems and that both research and policy in this area would benefit from a systems approach. We present a framework for such an approach, examine key underlying systems, and identify transdisciplinary modeling tools that may prove especially useful.complexity | agri-food | health | disease | environment N utrition is a fundamental human need, affecting health and well-being throughout the lifespan in myriad ways. A central concept in the study of human nutrition is food and nutrition security, which is typically defined as "when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life" (1). The absence of food and nutrition security can have significant consequences for individuals and for society, including malnutrition, obesity, disease, and poverty.Despite rapid growth in agricultural production over the past four decades, significant malnutrition persists. Average per-capita food consumption was below the recommended 2,200 kcal/d in 33 countries in 2003. Globally, more than 850 million people lack adequate access to food on a regular basis, with a third of these in East and Southeast Asia, another third in South Asia, and a quarter in sub-Saharan Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, one of the most food-insecure regions, the number of hungry people has gone up by 20% since 1990; more than a third of the population is undernourished in such countries as Kenya and Tanzania. There are 126 million underweight children in the world and over 2 billion people who suffer from micronutrient deficiency (2-4).At the same time, there has been an alarming rise in obesity in the developed world (5, 6) and, increasingly, in the developing world as well (7-9). The obesity rate in the United States doubled between 1970 and 2000, to almost 30% (5); worldwide, nearly 1.5 billion people are now overweight or obese (9). Like malnutrition, obesity has significant implications for public health (10, 11) and health care costs (12). Obesity can coexist in the same populations as malnutrition, and it may be linked to the same forces that drive reductions in malnutrition (13, 14). Complexity of Food and Nutrition SecurityBoth phenomena, malnutrition and obesity, are manifestations of widespread food and nutrition insecurity. The determinants of this insecurity are complex. A primary driver of food security or insecurity is the agricultural food system. The agrifood system spans a series of interrelated processes, including production of raw food materials through farming and raising of livestock, processing and packaging for consumption, distribution, and utilization by consumers (15). These processes are affected by a range of influences, including diffusion of agricultural technology (16, 17), functioning of capital markets, infrastructure at both local and regional/global levels, organization of firms and supply chains, sociopolitical factors ...

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“…This relationship is likely to operate through a traditional economic channel because, in a functioning labor market, qualified people should obtain a better job, thus having more income to use for their children's wellbeing. Moreover, schools can be a place where students directly obtain information on nutrition and health (Alderman, Hentschel, and Sabates 2003;Webb and Block 2004). Another important channel is information acquisition: for example, literate mothers can read the instructions of medicines and understand nutritional and health information disseminated by media like newspapers.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to the complex interaction among these factors, only few studies have attempted to empirically investigate the relative weight of each channel, leading to mixed results (Thomas, Strauss, and Henriques 1991;Webb and Block 2004;Frost, Forste, and Haas 2005;Burchi 2010). …”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whose education affects a childs nutritional status? From parents' to household's education

Burchi¹

2012

DemRes

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BACKGROUNDThe paper engages in the ongoing debate regarding the determinants of child nutrition in developing countries and stresses the potential contribution of the education of household members other than the child's parents. OBJECTIVEThe aim of the paper is threefold: (1) to verify whether there is evidence of the key role of parents' education for children's nutrition; (2) to explore the possible presence of the externalities generated by the literacy of household members different from the child's parents; (3) to test whether there is difference in the influence of these variables on the two indicators of child nutrition, child height-for-age and weight-for-age. METHODSThe determinants of child nutrition were analyzed by estimating a series of econometric models through OLS regressions applied on data from the 2003 DHS survey in Mozambique. By means of seemingly unrelated regression together with formal testing we compared the impact of the covariates on the two outcomes. RESULTSIn line with previous studies, we find that one year of mother's education increases their children's height-for-age and weight-for-age z-scores by nearly 0.025 and 0.015. The presence of another literate household member has a significant, though limited, effect on child height while it has no influence on child weight. Lastly, there is no statistically significant difference in the effect of parents' education on the two indicators while our measure of proximate literacy has a significantly larger impact on child height. CONCLUSIONSThese findings should orient policy-makers toward income-augmenting and educationenhancing policies: the importance of non-parents' literacy opens a further space for investment in education.

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Nutrition Information and Formal Schooling as Inputs to Child Nutrition

Cited by 99 publications

References 23 publications

Does Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program improve child nutrition?

Does Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program improve child nutrition?

A systems science perspective and transdisciplinary models for food and nutrition security

Whose education affects a childs nutritional status? From parents' to household's education

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Nutrition Information and Formal Schooling as Inputs to Child Nutrition

Cited by 99 publications

References 23 publications

Does Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program improve child nutrition?

Does Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program improve child nutrition?

A systems science perspective and transdisciplinary models for food and nutrition security

Whose education affects a childs nutritional status? From parents' to household's education

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Product

Resources

About

Whose education affects a childs nutritional status? From parents' to household's education