This paper investigates the impact of the availability of the School Breakfast Program (SBP) on childhood obesity.  The SBP is a federal entitlement program that offers subsidized breakfast to low-income students who attend a school that participates in the program. The school environment can substantially influence youths’ obesogenic behaviors due to the sizeable amount of time youths spend in school and the large percentage of daily caloric intake consumed in school.  A primary source of food consumption in schools is the school nutrition programs; thus, improvements in the quality of nutrition provided and increases in access to these programs could improve the overall nutrition in children’s diets. Participation in the School Breakfast Program (SBP) could reduce obesity through improved nutrition, less breakfast skipping, or an income effect, where the family now has more income for other expenses because breakfast is subsidized for the student.  On the other hand, consuming breakfast through the SBP could lead to an increase in caloric intake.  This paper contributes to the literature by providing point estimates of the causal effect of the availability of the SBP using a new and more credible source of identifying variation.

To increase the availability of the SBP, the federal government provided funding to states for schools serving low-income children to offset the start-up costs of implementing the SBP in the Child Nutrition Act of 1989.  In order to receive these funds, many states mandate that schools must provide breakfast through the SBP if the percent of free and reduced-price eligible (FRP) students exceeds a set threshold.  These thresholds range in value primarily from 10 to 40 percent, and I use these mandates as an identifying source of variation. 

 Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), I estimate a difference-in-differences specification that compares the achievement among students in schools above and below the threshold values across states with differing levels of SBP thresholds.  These mandates increase the availability of the SBP but do not predict other health-related characteristics of the student body or health-related programs of the school.  The results suggest that the availability of the SBP decreases body mass index (BMI) z-scores.  Further, this decrease is potentially the result of changes in what students eat as opposed to whether students eat breakfast.