Zhou Mi, Bian Biyu, Huang Li
College of Economics and Management, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, China.
Foods. 2023 Mar 31;12(7):1482. doi: 10.3390/foods12071482.
With the growing problem of childhood obesity, unhealthy dietary preferences among children have become an issue of worldwide concern. This article examines the class-peer effect of these preferences using random class assignment data from a field survey. The results show significant positive peer effects for both unhealthy food and beverages preference. These results remained robust after controlling for endogeneity issues using instrumental variables. Further analysis of the mechanism of peer effect shows that the better the relationship between classmates, the greater the influence peers have on unhealthy diet preferences among rural children. The same peer effect is found in situations where it is easy for children to obtain unhealthy food and beverages. The analysis of heterogeneity finds that the peer effects of unhealthy dietary preferences are stronger for girls, older students, and obese students. This paper also discusses the role of parents and schools in mitigating the peer effect. This paper proposes policy recommendations for rural areas in China to improve dietary preferences in children. These results may also provide useful guidelines for policy in other developing countries.
随着儿童肥胖问题日益严重，儿童不健康的饮食偏好已成为全球关注的问题。本文利用一项实地调查的随机班级分配数据，研究了这些偏好的班级同伴效应。结果显示，不健康食品和饮料偏好均存在显著的正向同伴效应。在使用工具变量控制内生性问题后，这些结果依然稳健。对同伴效应机制的进一步分析表明，农村儿童中，同学关系越好，同伴对不健康饮食偏好的影响就越大。在儿童容易获得不健康食品和饮料的情况下，也发现了同样的同伴效应。异质性分析发现，不健康饮食偏好的同伴效应在女孩、年龄较大的学生和肥胖学生中更强。本文还讨论了家长和学校在减轻同伴效应方面的作用。本文针对中国农村地区提出了改善儿童饮食偏好的政策建议。这些结果也可能为其他发展中国家的政策提供有用的指导。
