Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

I examine the association of child support and obesity risk among young children in Colombia. I use a longitudinal survey that includes child-parent relationship data, children’s anthropometric measures, and detailed information on child support.

Child support reduces income poverty among custodial-mother families in a wide range of countries. Less is known about the extent to which this monetary transfer has distinct effects on child well-being, especially in less developed countries. Child support may have a distinct influence on child well-being by increasing incentives to spend family income on children, influencing family dynamics in beneficial ways or simply avoiding the stigma associated with other non-labor income such as cash welfare.

This study examines the role of child support on young children’s obesity in Colombia. While child obesity has been primarily a public health concern for countries like the United States, recent statistics on child nutritional status show that child obesity is far from being a developed country issue. In Colombia, one in five children under five years old (20%) are at risk of obesity and 5% are already obese. The prevalence of child obesity along with dramatic family changes and very little extant research on concomitant child support issues make Colombia an interesting case study for developing countries.

I use data from the Colombian Longitudinal Survey of Wealth, Income, Labor and Land (ELCA) for 499 children aged 0 to 5 in custodial-mother families in urban Colombia. Preliminary analyses using probit models with extensive controls and propensity score matching techniques suggest that child support is associated with higher odds of obesity for children ages 0 to 5 years old.

This finding confirms other recent work and supports the “Disneyland dad” hypothesis, discussed in much previous research. Specifically, limited time with their children may lead noncustodial fathers to avoid conflict when they get together, making food choices that provide immediate enjoyment (e.g., ice cream, fast food, soda, etc.) and engaging in activities that do not encourage physical activity (e.g., playing video games, watching movies, etc.). The mechanisms through which child support may impact child obesity in the context of Colombia will be further investigated.   

This finding could have implications for policies designed to promote child well-being in Colombia and other Latin American countries, especially those focused on improving nutritional outcomes such as conditional cash transfer programs; efforts to integrate child support systems to these interventions may help noncustodial fathers improve their influence on their children’s well-being. Final analyses will include fixed effects models to adjust for time-invariant unobserved factors with persistent effects.