Children’s Food Insecurity, Food Preparation Time and the Effects of Food Environment

Food insecurity is detrimental to children’s well-being. It negatively affects children’s current health and has been linked to negative outcomes in children’s physical, intellectual, and social development. A better understanding of factors contributing to food insecurity has substantial public policy interest and can guide the design of federal food assistance programs.

This paper focuses on the role of household financial, environmental, and time constraints in children’s food insecurity. In particular, we investigate effects of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics as well as effects of food environment attributes—including food prices and availability of food stores and eating places—on food insecurity and food preparation time.

We construct a theoretical model, based on Becker’s household production framework, which formalizes the use of constrained financial and time resources in the household and accounts for the potential impacts of demographic, socioeconomic, and other factors. The model motivates empirical specifications of food insecurity and food preparation time equations, which are estimated jointly using a maximum likelihood approach.

The empirical analysis rests on a large dataset of households with children. The main data sources are the Food Security Supplement (FSS) of the Current Population Survey, 2002–2010, and the American Time Use Survey, 2003–2011. These two datasets are pooled across the years and cross-linked to construct a matched analytical sample (N=13,474). The matched data are supplemented with location-specific variables from sources such as the Quarterly Food-at-Home Price Database, a price database of the American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Association, and the County Business Patterns database. Our measure of food insecurity is referenced to the last twelve months and based on eight child-specific questions in the FSS.

We estimate intuitively plausible effects of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics on children’s food insecurity. Households with a single head and those with more children are more likely to experience food insecurity than married-couple households and those with fewer children, respectively. Lower household income and lower educational attainment of the householder are associated with more food insecurity. Also, being identified as a minority household significantly increases the incidence of food insecurity. Beyond these characteristics, the estimates suggest that residing in a location with higher fast food prices tends to contribute to more food insecurity. In comparison, residing in a location with relatively more convenience stores and specialty food stores tends to mitigate food insecurity. Individual and household characteristics also have statistically significant effects on the amount of time devoted to food preparation by the

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householder or the householder’s spouse/unmarried partner. Men spend substantially less time in food preparation than women. Additional children are associated with more food preparation time. More time is also spent when the householder is older, Hispanic, or foreign-born. The duration of food preparation tends to be longer among lower-income households.

Public policies supporting parents’ financial, transportation, and childcare needs, enhancing parents’ resource management skills, supporting the food needs of school-age children, and encouraging businesses to open specialty food stores in poorer neighborhoods may help alleviate children’s food insecurity.