School meal quality and academic performance

• Published in: Journal of public economics 2018-12, Vol.168, p.81-93
• Main Authors: Anderson, Michael L., Gallagher, Justin, Ramirez Ritchie, Elizabeth
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Nutrition
• ISSN: 0047-2727; 1879-2316
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.09.013

Improving the nutritional content of public school meals is a topic of intense policy interest. A main motivation is the health of school children, and, in particular, the rising childhood obesity rate. Medical and nutrition literature has long argued that a healthy diet can have a second important impact: improved cognitive function. In this paper, we test whether offering healthier meals affects student achievement as measured by test scores. Our sample includes all California (CA) public schools over a five-year period. We estimate difference-in-differences style regressions using variation that takes advantage of frequent meal-vendor contract turnover. Students at schools that contract with a healthy school-meal vendor score higher on CA state achievement tests. We do not find any evidence that healthier school meals lead to a decrease in obesity rates. The test score gains, while modest in magnitude, come at very low cost. •Improving the nutritional content of school meals is a topic of intense policy interest•Using panel data on California schools, we test whether contracting with healthy school meal providers increases achievement•We find that test scores increase 0.03 to 0.05 standard deviations after contracting with healthy school meal providers•These effects represent a very cost effective way to increase test scores