Heather Royer

The importance of parental knowledge: evidence from weight report cards in Mexico.

The rise of childhood obesity in less developed countries is often overlooked. We study the impact of body weight report cards in Mexico. The report cards increased parental knowledge and shifted parental attitudes about childrens weight. We observe no meaningful changes in parental behaviors or childrens body mass index. Interestingly, parents of children in the most obese classrooms were less likely to report that their obese child weighed too much relative to those in the least obese classrooms. As obesity rates increase, reference points for appropriate body weights may rise, making it more difficult to lower obesity rates.

Intergenerational Effects on Health – In Utero and Early Life

An emerging economics literature emphasizes the importance of in utero and intergenerational factors in the production of health. From a theoretical perspective this is not surprising as models of human and health capital increasingly emphasize the value of early childhood investments. Complementary to this, there is growing biological evidence via the fetal origins hypothesis considering how early life influences such as those in utero can have consequences for adult health. This article discusses theoretically the role of inutero and intergenerational factors in the health production function and then reviews the relevant empirical literature.

The Limits of Simple Implementation Intentions: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Making Plans to Exercise

Recent large-scale randomized experiments find that helping people form implementation intentions by asking when and where they plan to act increases one-time actions, such as vaccinations, preventative screenings and voting. We investigate the effect of a simple scalable planning intervention on a repeated behavior using a randomized design involving 877 subjects at a private gym. Subjects were randomized into i) a treatment group who selected the days and times they intended to attend the gym over the next two weeks or ii) a control group who instead recorded their days of exercise in the prior two weeks. In contrast to recent studies, we find that the planning intervention did not have a positive effect on behavior. We observe a tightly estimated null effect even though the majority of subjects believed that planning is helpful and despite clear evidence that they engaged with the planning process.