Childhood obesity and academic performance among elementary public school children

Jebaraj Asirvatham, Michael R. Thomsen, Rodolfo M. Nayga

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    5 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Background: In addition to health problems or increasing the significant risk of health problems, obesity is also negatively associated with several socioeconomic outcomes. Obesity could negatively influence academic outcomes. The relationship between obesity rates and academic performance deserves attention because obesity rates have been steadily increasing over the last few decades. Purpose: Most of the existing studies assess the effect of student obesity on the student’s own educational outcomes. In this study, we examine the relationship in the context of obesity at the student grade level, which allows us to partially examine the influence of stigmatisation. Design & methods: The main variables of interest are obesity rates and academic proficiency rates. We study public school students, grades kindergarten (K) through to 12, in Arkansas. Multilevel methods are employed to account for similar factors at various levels in the school hierarchy, i.e., at the grade-, school- and school district-level. Results: Obesity prevalence is positively associated with the percentage of students performing below proficiency levels in both literacy and maths. Our findings also suggest that stigmatisation experienced by obese children may be one mechanism behind this association. Conclusions: The findings favour the hypothesis that obese students could face greater psychological consequences in school settings with a smaller percentage of obese students and vice versa.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1-21
    Number of pages21
    JournalEducational Research
    Volume61
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2019 Jan 2

    Bibliographical note

    Funding Information:
    Funding Sources: This project was supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant no. 2011-68001-30014 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture This work was also partly funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea [NRF-2011-330-B00074] and the Arkansas Biosciences Institute (ABI).

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 2019, © 2019 NFER.

    Keywords

    • Childhood obesity
    • academic performance
    • educational economics
    • health
    • human capital
    • stigmatisation

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Education

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