Description/Abstract

While advocates argue that gentrification changes the neighborhood food environment critical to children’s diet and health, we have little evidence documenting such changes or the consequences for their health outcomes. Using rich longitudinal, individual-level data on nearly 115,000 New York City children, including egocentric measures of their food environment and BMI, we examine the link between neighborhood demographic change (“gentrification”), children’s access to restaurants and supermarkets, and their weight outcomes. We find that children in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods see increased access to fast food and wait-service restaurants and reduced access to corner stores and supermarkets compared to those in non-gentrifying areas. Boys and girls have higher BMI following gentrification, but only boys are more likely to be obese or overweight. We find public housing moderates the relationship between gentrification and weight, as children living in public housing are less likely to be obese or overweight.

Document Type

Working Paper

Date

1-2022

Keywords

Gentrification, Food Environment, Childhood Obesity, Public Housing

Language

English

Funder(s)

National Institutes of Health

Funding ID

R01HD070739, R01DK097347, R01DK108682.

Series

Working Papers Series

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the New York City Department of Education, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Jeremy Sze, Meryle Weinstein, Giuseppe Germinario, Courtney Abrams, Eric Zhou, and Brian Elbel for providing data and support.

Disciplines

Economic Policy | Economics | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

ISSN

1525-3066

Additional Information

Working paper no. 245

Source

Local input

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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