The effect of physical education on children's body weight and human capital: New evidence from the ECLS-K:2011

This study provides evidence on the impact of physical education on child body weight, cognitive, and noncognitive achievement using data from the Early Child Longitudinal Survey Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (ECLS-K: 2011). Students in the 2011 cohort were exposed to increased accountability pressures by No Child Left Behind, yet average weekly physical education time has not decreased from that reported in studies using the original ECLS-K class of 1998-1999. We instrument for teacher-reported weekly PE time using state physical education laws and exploit the panel design of the data to estimate individual fixed effects models to address concerns of endogeneity. We find time spent in physical education has essentially no effect on child body weight or human capital outcomes of U.S. elementary school children.