Chronic undernutrition, short-term hunger, and student functioning in rural northwest China

Chronic undernutrition and hunger remain significant problems for children, in global perspective, and may have important implications for children's ability to function effectively at school. In this paper, we capitalize on a longitudinal data set of children in 100 villages in Gansu Province to estimate differences in achievement, behavior, and long-term persistence associated with chronic undernourishment and short term hunger. We show that chronic undernourishment and short-term hunger relate to children's school functioning in distinct ways: chronically undernourished children have poorer literacy acquisition and subsequent school persistence, while children who report subjective hunger have more behavioral problems.