Three Essays on Household Committed Activities and Diet Quality

摘要

Obesity and diabetes are two very important diet-related issues in the U.S. Due to the strong connection between these diseases and diet quality, there is a large body of research investigating the connection between income, the food environment and diet quality. However, despite numerous studies and interventions addressing income and food-environment factors, the diet-quality gap between low-income and high-income households still persists. Therefore, researchers have begun to study the role of household time allocations on diet quality. In particularly, these three essays consider time spent in primary childcare, secondary childcare, adult care, and non-car transportation because 1) these are committed activities, i.e., activities that must be completed given past decisions, and 2) non-food activities may be more easily influenced by policy.;In the first essay I consider how the share of a household's day spent in childcare (secondary or primary), adult care, non-car transportation, and food-at-home (FAH) activities influence the share of household food expenditure in certain food groups, while in the second essay I consider how the share of time spent in childcare, adult care, and FAH activities affect the household's Healthy Eating Index (HEI). In the third essay I switch focus to food away from home (FAFH) and consider how time spent in primary childcare, secondary childcare, adult care, working, and FAH activities affect the probability and frequency of fast-food purchases. In general I find that secondary childcare and adult care are associated with lower diet quality, while primary childcare and FAH activities are associated with higher diet quality. In addition, income and the food environment influence the effect of time spent in these activities.