Quantitative analysis of food marketing policy has played a critical role in the evolution of empirical industrial organization and antitrust enforcement over the past 40 years. This article highlights the contributions of the author and other agricultural economists. The second half of this article explains why an economist might want to do, or perhaps avoid, public policy work. It gives several examples from antitrust cases where economic policy analysis is a front-line contact sport.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed and adopted a new set of meal pattern requirements for the National School Lunch Program that will allow schools to claim 6 cents more in lunch reimbursement rates. This study analyzes the food costs of school menus in 2005 that met many of the proposed requirements. Overall, schools that served more, and more diverse, non-starchy vegetables had higher average food costs, and schools that served menus with lower calories had lower food costs. The food costs of school lunch menus that met the combined standards for dark green vegetables, orange vegetables, other vegetables, lowfat/fat-free milk, and fruit averaged 9 cents more per meal in 2005 dollars when other major factors that could affect food choices are taken into account. The main sources of higher costs appear to be related to the provisions for more vegetables.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest nutritional assistance program addressing food insecurity in the United States. Due to the program's reach, SNAP has been called upon to address other nutrition-related challenges facing low-income Americans, including childhood obesity. This study considers the effect of SNAP participation on child weight outcomes after controlling for household financial stress, an important determinant of child overweight status that disproportionately affects low-income households. Using data from the Survey of Household Finances and Childhood Obesity and instrumental variable methods, we find that SNAP participation is negatively associated with obesity among eligible children.

The organization of the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, retail food industry was analyzed to determine whether spatial competition influenced the cost and availability of food items. Using a spatial competition gravity variable, the costs of two separate market baskets were analyzed in January 2009, and the factors influencing spatial competition were determined. Store type (chain or supercenter) was found to be the most significant determinant of food costs, validating findings of past studies. Although food was not found to be more expensive in low-income areas, results suggest that residents in low-income and rural areas have disincentives to purchase affordable, available healthy food due to the spatial organization of their local food market.

Recent studies examine the impact of the built environment on health outcomes such as obesity. Several studies find for certain populations that access to unhealthy food has a positive effect on obesity, whereas access to healthy choices has a negative effect. Given the growth and popularity of locally grown food, we examine how individual weight outcomes are affected by access to direct-to-consumer local food. After controlling for potential endogeneity, we find that greater access to local food has a negative association with individual weight outcomes. We also find a negative association with greater weight loss over a one-year period. These results provide evidence that local food access can have potential indirect benefits.

We use observational data from 22 elementary schools and over 48,000 child-day observations to examine the relationship between the number of fruit and vegetable items and the consumption patterns of children during school lunch. We find that each additional fruit or vegetable item that is offered increases the fraction of children who eat at least one serving of fruits and vegetables by 12 percent. We also use our observational data to provide practical information about which items are most likely to be eaten by children during lunch and compare this to the cost and nutritional quality of these items.

This paper explores the relationship between income and eating behavior. To do this we examine choice in two food categories: milk and soft drinks. These categories have varieties differing in health qualities but either no differences in cost or lower cost for the healthier types. By examining food choices when there are no measurable cost differences but clear health differences, we are able to isolate the association between income and healthy eating behavior. We find a negative association between income and dietary intake of higher-calorie types of milk and soft drinks. Our estimates are consistent across the five sets of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals data that we study. For 2005 we estimate that an income increase of $10,000 is linked to a reduction in 377 calories from milk and 2,555 calories from soft drinks per year. Our results suggest that the cost of food may not be the only reason why low income people have less healthy diets.

In recent years, many researchers have sought to measure the effects of adolescent soft drink consumption due to a suspected link with childhood obesity and other negative health outcomes. While most studies in the existing literature have focused on physical health outcomes, the current study seeks to analyze how providing soft drinks in vending machines affects adolescent in-school behavior and academics. The data for this analysis comes from a school district in which a subset of schools prohibited the sale of soft drinks in vending machines. Using this subset of schools as a treatment group, students at the treatment schools are compared with students at the schools that did not change their vending machine policies. A difference-in-differences estimation shows that the number of times a student was tardy to class decreased significantly at the treatment schools. Students also were less likely to be referred to the principal's office for behavior problems following the policy change. These results suggest that policies directed toward restrictions on soft drinks in school vending machines might improve behavioral outcomes for students.

Many scholars and activists are interested in the potential for school-based childhood nutrition programs to positively impact the U.S. agri-food system. This paper explores efforts of a national K-12 school food collaborative to procure more sustainably grown and healthful food products. After a review of literature on transaction cost theory and school food procurement, the paper examines the potential of strategic partnerships in a value chain framework to meet procurement change goals. Results from a qualitative study of two participating school districts suggest that partnerships can offer potential solutions to recurring procurement barriers found in previous research.

Rational choice theory commonly assumes that the presence of unselected choices cannot impact which among the remaining choices is selected—often referred to as “independence of irrelevant alternatives.” We show that such seemingly irrelevant alternatives influence choice in a school lunch setting. In these lunchrooms, we provide evidence that the presence of specific side dishes—trigger foods—can strongly increase the sales of unhealthy à la carte options, even when the trigger foods are not selected. This behavioral anomaly can be exploited to lead children to healthier choices. We also offer a method that can be used to identify such foods.

Direct and indirect attempts to increase parents' fruit and vegetable purchases have had little, if any, success. Most of the disappointing results are reported in the grocery environment. In this context, embedding messages with social meaning may have a significant impact on current campaigns. We use the focus theory of normative conduct as an alternative theoretical framework and suggest that social norms that are salient, easy to interpret, and easy to compare against individuals' behavior may improve current attempts to increase parents' fruit and vegetable purchases in retail environments.