Overweight Children Miss More School, New Study Discovers

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Main Category: Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 13 Aug 2007 - 0:00 PST

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A study by scientists in the US has discovered that children who are overweight may miss more school than their normal weight peers. The researchers said this could be because of the stigma and bullying that accompanies the condition and not necessarily because of the health effects of being obese.

The study was supported by the US National Institutes for Health and is to be reported in the August issue of the journal Obesity which is not yet available to view online.

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania studied more than 1,000 children in the 4th, 5th and 6th grade attending Pennsylvania schools and found that found that those who were overweight were at higher risk of absenteeism than their normal weight couterparts.

Childhood obesity has nearly tripled in the US since the 1970s. Today, ten per cent of 2 to 5 year olds and more than 15 per cent of children between the ages of 6 and 19 are overweight. If you add the proportion of kids who are overweight to the proportion that is at risk of becoming overweight, about one in three kids in the US is affected, according to the Nemours Foundation.

Andrew B Geier, a PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the authors of the study, said in a press statement that:

"At this young age, children are not necessarily experiencing the health problems that will likely confront them later in life unless serious intervention takes place," he added.

"However, they are missing school at a greater rate than their peers, setting themselves up for the negative fallout that accompanies absenteeism. What's keeping them from school, more than heath issues, is the stigma and the bullying that accompanies being overweight. Future research should explore this additional, very damaging side effect of being overweight."

The researchers discovered that BMI (body mass index) is as strongly linked to school absenteeism as age, race, socioeconomic status and gender, and that on average overweight children were absent 20 per cent more than their normal weight peers.

Other studies have already suggested there are many medical and psychological effects of being overweight in childhood, and that children who miss school are more likely to use drugs, get pregnant and do less well academically.

Age, race, socioeconomic status and gender have traditionally been the strong predictors of school absence in children. For instance, studies have shown that young men and boys from poorer minority populations are among the most likely to miss school. However, this research suggests that being overweight was an even stronger predictor of poor school attendance than any of the other four more traditional predictors.

Geier and colleagues conducted their research in nine inner-city Philadelphia elementary schools, where more than 80 percent of students were eligible for free and reduced-cost meal plans.

Click here for the journal Obesity.

Click here for advice on Obesity and Children: Helping Your Child Keep a Healthy Weight (from the American Academy of Family Physicians).

Click here for the Nemours Foundation Kids Health Project.

Written by: Catharine Paddock
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