Obesity can keep children away from school

16 August, 2007:

In the first-ever study on the link between obesity in children and school attendance, researchers have found that overweight children are at greater risk of school absenteeism than their peers with normal weight.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University, the United States, of over 1,000 4th, 5th and 6th graders in the Philadelphia school system also found that body mass index (BMI) is as significant a factor in determining absenteeism from school as age, race, socio-economic status, and gender.

The findings have been reported in the latest issue of the journal Obesity.

The study found that overweight children were absent on an average 20% more than their normal-weight peers.

According to Andrew B Geier of the Department of Psychology in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, “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. However, they are missing school at a greater rate than their peers, setting themselves up for the negative fallout that accompanies absenteeism. What is keeping them from school, more than heath issues, is the stigma and the bullying that accompanies being overweight.”

The study builds on earlier studies which show that the medical and psycho-social consequences of being overweight are numerous and still being discovered.

The disadvantages that arise from missing school such as increased drug use, increased rates of pregnancy, and poor academic performance have been previously documented.

The rate of childhood obesity has tripled in the United States in the past 25 years.

The four indicators of increased absenteeism among school children have traditionally been race, socio-economic status, age, and gender. Young men from economically disadvantaged, minority populations were considered at greater risk for school absenteeism – and this remains true even today.

However, in the new study, body mass index was a better indicator of poor classroom attendance than these traditional factors or any others.