Start While Young: The Effects of Early Childhood Care on Childhood Obesity

The rise of obesity in the United States has fostered the development of an unhealthy and costly population. In order to turn this trend around, this nation should focus upon nurtuting healthy youth. One way in which to do so is to provide children with proper care at very young ages. This paper questions whether a certain type (or types) of early childhood care has (have) an effect on childhood obesity. The results of measuring various types of child care and other socioeconomic and family structure variables suggest that early child care has a significant relationship with childhood obesity which deserves further analysis.