Youths at Nutrition Risk
Malnourished or Misnourished?
Published in: Risky Behavior among Youths: An Economic Analysis / Edited By J. Gruber (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2001), Chapter 10, p. 483-521
Posted on RAND.org on January 01, 2001
Extreme nutrition deprivation is rare in the United States and in other developed countries. Nevertheless, many American youths are misnourished --they overconsume fats and underconsume foods such as fruits and vegetables--a trend linked to the increasing prevalence of obesity. In this chapter, the authors review data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys and find that poor nutrition is a problem for American youths regardless of family background. They conclude that policies designed to alter diet composition are likely to address the nutrition problems of American youths more effectively than policies (such as food stamps) that merely seek to increase the quantity of good consumed.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation External publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.