Abstract
We investigate the longitudinal relationship between urbanization and children's dietary diversity using a large, detailed survey conducted in Cebu, Philippines, during its period of rapid transformation in the 1990s. Using a panel of 1840 children observed at ages 8, 11, and 15, we model children’s weekly consumption of food items included in the meat, seafood, rice, vegetables, beans, tubers, fruits, and dairy groups. Within child-household variation in the characteristics of urban communities (barangays) during this period helps us to empirically identify potential causal relationships. We find that urbanization is significantly positively associated with children’s consumption of meat, fruit, and meals prepared at home and negatively associated with the consumption of vegetables and sweets. Models allowing for interactions between household socioeconomic status (SES) and local community urbanization reveal nuanced relationships with children’s dietary outcomes. Children from lower SES households have greater dietary diversity if living in communities with greater urbanization and consume significantly larger amounts of meat, fruits, and dairy. Urbanization is also associated with more frequent consumption of meals prepared at home and less consumption of sweet foods, on average. Overall, the findings suggest that the urbanization of local communities during this stage of development contributes to improvements in children’s diets.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
From 1989 to 1992, residential lot prices considerably increased by an annual average of 52.1%. Commercial and industrial lot prices in Metro Cebu increased as well by 33.2% and 24.6%, respectively.
The data were not surveyed in a way that allows for a finer categorization of consumed food items according to how processed the items were.
References
Adair LS, Gultiano S, Suchindran C (2011) 20-year trends in Filipino women’s weight reflect substantial secular and age effects. J Nutr 141(4):667–673. https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.110.134387
Ambikapathi R, Schneider KR, Davis B, Herrero M, Winters P, Fanzo JC (2022) Global food systems transitions have enabled affordable diets but had less favourable outcomes for nutrition, environmental health, inclusion and equity. Nat Food 3(9):764–779
Aurino E, Fernandes M, Penny ME (2017) The nutrition transition and adolescents’ diets in low-and middle-income countries: a cross-cohort comparison. Public Health Nutr 20(1):72–81
Baker P, Friel S (2014) Processed foods and the nutrition transition: evidence from Asia. Obes Rev 15(7):564–577
Barten AP (1964) Consumer demand functions under conditions of almost additive preferences. Economet J Econ Soc 1:1–38
Bhargava A (2015) Protein and micronutrient intakes are associated with child growth and morbidity from infancy to adulthood in the Philippines. J Nutr 146(1):133–141. https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.115.222869
Bogart LM, Elliott MN, Ober AJ, Klein DJ, Hawes-Dawson J, Cowgill BO, Schuster MA (2017) Home sweet home: parent and home environmental factors in adolescent consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. Acad Pediatr 17(5):529–536
Brar S, Akseer N, Sall M, Conway K, Diouf I, Everett K, Wigle J (2020) Drivers of stunting reduction in Senegal: a country case study. Am J Clin Nutr 112(Supplement_2):860S-874S
Cockx L, Colen L, De Weerdt J (2018) From corn to popcorn? Urbanization and dietary change: evidence from rural-urban migrants in Tanzania. World Dev 110:140–159
Cronbach LJ (1951) Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika 16(3):297–334
Dahly DL, Adair LS (2007) Quantifying the urban environment: a scale measure of urbanicity outperforms the urban–rural dichotomy. Soc Sci Med 64(7):1407–1419
Darmon N, Ferguson EL, Briend A (2002) A cost constraint alone has adverse effects on food selection and nutrient density: an analysis of human diets by linear programming. J Nutr 132(12):3764–3771
Darmon N, Ferguson E, Briend A (2003) Do economic constraints encourage the selection of energy dense diets? Appetite 41(3):315–322
Deaton A, Paxson C (1998) Economies of scale, household size, and the demand for food. J Polit Econ 106(5):897–930
Desbouys L, Méjean C, De Henauw S, Castetbon K (2020) Socio-economic and cultural disparities in diet among adolescents and young adults: a systematic review. Public Health Nutr 23(5):843
Drewnowski A, Darmon N (2005) Food choices and diet costs: an economic analysis. J Nutr 135(4):900–904
Firestone R, Punpuing S, Peterson KE, Acevedo-Garcia D, Gortmaker SL (2011) Child overweight and undernutrition in Thailand: is there an urban effect? Soc Sci Med 72(9):1420–1428
Florentino RF, Villavieja GM, Laña RD (2002) Dietary and physical activity patterns of 8-to 10-year-old urban schoolchildren in Manila. Philipp Food Nutr Bull 23(3):267–273
Gracey M (2002) Child health in an urbanizing world. Acta Paediatr 91(1):1–8
Guthrie HA, Scheer JC (1981) Validity of a dietary score for assessing nutrient adequacy. J Am Diet Assoc 78(3):240–245
Habte T, Krawinkel M (2016) Dietary diversity score: a measure of nutritional adequacy or an indicator of healthy diet. J Nutr Health Sci 3(3):303
Hawkes C (2008) Dietary implications of supermarket development: a global perspective. Dev Policy Rev 26(6):657–692
Headey D, Stifel D, You L, Guo Z (2018) Remoteness, urbanization, and child nutrition in sub-Saharan Africa. Agric Econ 49(6):765–775
Japan International Cooperation Agency (2002) The study on the Cebu integrated port development plan in the Republic of the Philippines. https://openjicareport.jica.go.jp/pdf/11684776_01.pdf
Kennedy G, Nantel G, Brouwer ID, Kok FJ (2006) Does living in an urban environment confer advantages for childhood nutritional status? Analysis of disparities in nutritional status by wealth and residence in Angola, central African republic and Senegal. Public Health Nutr 9(2):187–193
Kennedy GL, Pedro MR, Seghieri C, Nantel G, Brouwer I (2007) Dietary diversity score is a useful indicator of micronutrient intake in non-breast-feeding Filipino children. J Nutr 137(2):472–477
Kishiue A, Narashinodai F, Amano K, Lidasan HS (2003) The transformation of Cebu City through the development of its transportation infrastructure (1521–1990). J East Asia Soc Transp Stud 5:3286–3302
Law L (1997) Cebu and Ceboom: The political place of globalisation in a Philippine City. In: Rimmer PJ (ed) Pacific rim development: integration and globalisation in the Asia-Pacific economy. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, pp 240–266
Mendez MA, Popkin BM (2004) Globalization, urbanization and nutritional change in the developing world. eJADE Electron J Agric Develop Econ 1(853-2016–56106):220–241
Muellbauer J (1977) Testing the Barten model of household composition effects and the cost of children. Econ J 87(347):460–487
Musgrove P (1988) Basic food consumption in north–east Brazil: effects of income, price, and family size in metropolitan and rural areas. Food Nutr Bull 10(1):1–10
Ochola S, Masibo PK (2014) Dietary intake of schoolchildren and adolescents in developing countries. Ann Nutr Metab 64(Suppl. 2):24–40
Pettigrew S, Jongenelis M, Chapman K, Miller C (2015) Factors influencing the frequency of children’s consumption of soft drinks. Appetite 91:393–398
Popkin BM (2006) Global nutrition dynamics: the world is shifting rapidly toward a diet linked with noncommunicable diseases–. Am J Clin Nutr 84(2):289–298
Ruel MT, Haddad L, Garrett JL (1999) Some urban facts of life: implications for research and policy. World Dev 27(11):1917–1938
Ruel MT, Garrett JL, Haddad L (2008) Rapid urbanization and the challenges of obtaining food and nutrition security. In: Semba RD, Bloem MW, Piot P (eds) Nutrition and health in developing countries. Nutrition and health series. Humana Press, pp 639–656. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-464-3_22
Sajor EE (2001) The real estate boom in the 1990s and land use allocation for socialized housing in Metro Cebu, Philippines. Urban Management Programme, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Scrimshaw NS, SanGiovanni JP (1997) Synergism of nutrition, infection, and immunity: an overview. Am J Clin Nutr 66(2):464S-477S
Zeger SL, Liang K-Y, Albert PS (1988) Models for longitudinal data: a generalized estimating equation approach. Biometrics 44(4):1049–1060
Funding
The present study received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
L. L. H. and C. L. performed the analyses and wrote the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
There are no conflicts of interest to declare.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
The authors would like to thank Alok Bhargava for helpful discussions, and the editors and reviewers for helpful suggestions.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Howard, L.L., Labuzon, C. The impact of urbanization on children’s diets: longitudinal evidence from Cebu. J. Soc. Econ. Dev. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40847-023-00284-7
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40847-023-00284-7