Childhood Overweight: Does Quality of Parental Childcare Time Matter?

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of parental primary childcare time (quality time) and parental secondary childcare time (multi-tasking time) on children’s overweight probability using data collected from each parent and one child aged 9–16 from 311 families in Houston MSA, US. We find that the primary childcare time is not marginally more important than the secondary childcare time and paternal childcare time is especially important for young children (age 9–11). Furthermore, if parents of overweight children adopt the time inputs of parents of healthy weight children, the predicted overweight probability decreases by ~15% on average, ceteris paribus. If either one of the parents is completely uninvolved, the overweight probability increases by ~21% on average, ceteris paribus.