Food for Thought: The Cognitive Effects of Childhood Malnutrition in the United States

The U.S. faces two types of childhood malnutrition – the prevalence of overweight children has increased dramatically over the past two decades and the degree of underweight has been unacceptably high. Both forms of malnutrition create public health problems. Less is known about how childhood overor underweight affects a child’s cognitive functioning. We use data from the children of the NLSY79 to investigate the cognitive consequences of child malnutrition. We use several estimation methods to control for various forms of endogeneity. Our results suggest that malnourished children tend have lower cognitive abilities when compared to well-nourished children.