This paper examines the relationship between education and health behaviours, focusing on potential offsetting responses between calories in (i.e. dietary intakes) and calories out (i.e. physical activity). It exploits the 1972 British compulsory schooling law that raised the minimum school leaving age from 15 to 16 to estimate the effects of education on diet and exercise around middle age. Using a regression discontinuity design, the findings suggest that the reform led to a worsening of the quality of the diet, with increases in total calories, fats and animal proteins. However, I find that these changes are partially offset by a discontinuous increase in physical activity. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest little effect on the balance of calories. As such, the findings show that focusing on the two components of energy balance provides additional information that is concealed in analyses that only use a measure of obesity.

中文翻译：

---

教育、膳食摄入和锻炼*

本文研究了教育与健康行为之间的关系，重点关注卡路里摄入（即饮食摄入）和卡路里消耗（即身体活动）之间的潜在抵消反应。它利用 1972 年英国义务教育法将最低离校年龄从 15 岁提高到 16 岁来估计教育对中年左右饮食和锻炼的影响。使用回归不连续设计，研究结果表明改革导致恶化饮食质量，总热量、脂肪和动物蛋白的增加。然而，我发现这些变化被身体活动的不连续增加部分抵消了。粗略计算表明对卡路里平衡的影响很小。因此，研究结果表明，关注能量平衡的两个组成部分提供了额外的信息，这些信息隐藏在仅使用肥胖测量的分析中。