Does China's One-Child Policy Generate Childhood Obesity in the 1990s?

Juhua Yang, Brown University

Drawing on prospective data from the 1993, 1997 and 2000 China Health and Nutrition Survey, this analysis investigates the relationship between the one-child policy and obesity among children age 0-5 at baseline. The policy is measured directly as policy strength and indirectly as sibship composition. Cross-sectional and longitudinal findings from multilevel models suggest that, first, obesity among preschoolers and primary school children increases in the 1990s with a slower pace than that found in other studies in China. Second, single children and those in strong policy communities do not differ from sibling children and children in weak policy communities, after adjusting for household and contextual characteristics. Thus, the policy does not seem to bear a relation to childhood obesity directly or indirectly, and this study provides little evidence to support the public perception that the one-child policy is associated with the rising epidemic of obesity in transitional China.