TY - JOUR
T1 - The impacts of free school lunch policies on adolescent BMI and mental health
T2 - Evidence from a natural experiment in South Korea
AU - Bethmann, Dirk
AU - Cho, Jae Il
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to Lesley Turner and Eun Chul Choi for their constructive comments. Moreover, the authors thank the editor and two unknown reviewers for their very helpful suggestions. This research benefitted from Korea University (KU) research funding (grant number K1819921 ). An earlier version of this paper was initially registered at the Korea University Institute of Economics Research (Discussion paper #2107) under the title “Free-School-Lunch Policies: Impact Evaluation on Student BMI and Mental Health.”
Funding Information:
We are grateful to Lesley Turner and Eun Chul Choi for their constructive comments. Moreover, the authors thank the editor and two unknown reviewers for their very helpful suggestions. This research benefitted from Korea University (KU) research funding (grant number K1819921). An earlier version of this paper was initially registered at the Korea University Institute of Economics Research (Discussion paper #2107) under the title “Free-School-Lunch Policies: Impact Evaluation on Student BMI and Mental Health.”
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
PY - 2022/6
Y1 - 2022/6
N2 - In spring 2015, the South Korean province of South Gyeongsang stopped providing free school lunches to primary and secondary school students while large portions of schools in other provinces continued to provide free lunches at school. After the provincial government faced strong opposition, South Gyeongsang reintroduced the free-school-lunch program the very next year. Using a difference-in-differences design, we exploit these policy changes to evaluate their impact on students' body mass index (BMI) and on a measure related to students’ mental health status (MH). Our results show that the abolishment of free school lunches harmed (female) underweight students by causing additional weight losses of about 4.5 percent whereas the reintroduction of free school lunches led to an average weight loss of 2.1 percent among overweight students (both male and female). Moreover, the school lunch policy changes had significant impacts on our MH measure: crying without any reason increased when the free-school-lunch policy was abolished and it decreased when the policy was reintroduced. The results are of great interest to decision makers: introducing free school lunches helps to achieve healthier weights and decreases crying without any reason and as a result, benefits student welfare. Free-school-lunch policies, therefore, may provide simple and inexpensive means to improve the health and welfare of students.
AB - In spring 2015, the South Korean province of South Gyeongsang stopped providing free school lunches to primary and secondary school students while large portions of schools in other provinces continued to provide free lunches at school. After the provincial government faced strong opposition, South Gyeongsang reintroduced the free-school-lunch program the very next year. Using a difference-in-differences design, we exploit these policy changes to evaluate their impact on students' body mass index (BMI) and on a measure related to students’ mental health status (MH). Our results show that the abolishment of free school lunches harmed (female) underweight students by causing additional weight losses of about 4.5 percent whereas the reintroduction of free school lunches led to an average weight loss of 2.1 percent among overweight students (both male and female). Moreover, the school lunch policy changes had significant impacts on our MH measure: crying without any reason increased when the free-school-lunch policy was abolished and it decreased when the policy was reintroduced. The results are of great interest to decision makers: introducing free school lunches helps to achieve healthier weights and decreases crying without any reason and as a result, benefits student welfare. Free-school-lunch policies, therefore, may provide simple and inexpensive means to improve the health and welfare of students.
KW - Difference-in-differences design
KW - Free-school-lunch policies
KW - Student health
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85127462685&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ssmph.2022.101072
DO - 10.1016/j.ssmph.2022.101072
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85127462685
VL - 18
JO - SSM - Population Health
JF - SSM - Population Health
SN - 2352-8273
M1 - 101072
ER -
