Distinguished Lecture on "Education and Child and Adolescent Obesity in China"

Obesity is rising at high rates in China compared to almost all countries in the world, especially among children and young adults.  This lecture addresses the issue of whether and how income and schooling affect obesity using evidence from a new panel data set of adolescent twins born in rural China.  The results based on the new data show that teens who obtain more schooling than their twin siblings are less likely to become overweight, are more likely to increase time spents exercising, and are less likely to take up smoking.  The results also indicate that parents can provide effective diet and exercise advice to their children but that less educated parents are significantly less aware that a child's being overweight is an indicator of his or her adverse health.  The evidence thus highlights the importance of both incentives to maintain health associated with income and health information facilitated by schooling.

Mark R. Rosenzweig is the Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics and Director of the Economic Growth Center at Yale.  He is also a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Economics at Lingnan University.  He is a development economist who pioneered in the use of microeconometric methods for studying the causes and consequences of economic development and the role of human capital.  Rosenzweig is Co-Editor of the Handbook of Family and Population Economics and of the newest Handbook of Development Economics.  Rosenzweig also recently served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Development Economics.  He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Yangtze River Scholar.  Rosenzweig earned B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University.