Do School Junk Food Bans Improve Young Canadians’ Health? Evidence from Canada
October 12, 2017, 3:00pm (Atlantic Time)
CRDCN Webinar Series

Presented by Phil Leonard, Research Associate with the Department of Economics at UNB and a Health Economist for the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training, Fredericton, New Brunswick.

The rising number of overweight and obese youth in Canada is an important public health concern as obesity is associated with several negative health outcomes later in life and with increasing health care expenditures. Curtailing rising obesity rates among youth is therefore an important policy goal. Although the reasons for the rise in obesity are complex, public health policy has focused on improving the quantity of exercise and nutrition for children, particularly in the school setting. Since 2005, six Canadian provinces have banned the sale of junk food on school property to help address child health issues such as obesity.

In this webinar, Phil Leonard will present recent research results examining the causal impact of these food bans on the body mass index (BMI) of young Canadians exposed to the bans while in school, using data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). His results suggest that that each year of a junk food ban is associated with a decline of about 0.05 body mass index.

Click here to register for this webinar.