The prevalence of obesity has reached epidemic proportions and one in five school children is estimated to be overweight. As more is learned about the medical and psychological effects of obesity, there has been an increasing focus on the school setting as an important place for intervention.
Obesity affects school performance
Preschool children learning about healthy foods
Obesity has the potential to impact a student’s academic performance in several ways. Research shows that obesity is associated with not getting adequate sleep. Approximately 7% of overweight children have sleep apnea, an illness in which sleep is interrupted by periods of breathing cessation leading to numerous awakenings through the night. Consequently, the student may feel excessively tired during the course of the day and be less able to concentrate on lessons. Other health conditions that often co-occur with obesity, most notably asthma, may result in hospitalization and lead to increased school absenteeism.
Obesity can also influence a student’s ability to concentrate in other ways. Overweight children often feel self-conscious of their appearance. Accurately or inaccurately, they may perceive that others are mocking their size. During class periods, overweight children often worry about others’ impressions of them and these worries can distract them from the lesson or completion of homework.
Severely obese children may require additional accommodations, including oversized desks, additional time between classes (if they ambulate slowly), and elevator passes. This adds to the stigmatization of obesity and can make them easy targets for bullying. In fact, studies suggest that overweight elementary-school children are involved in more fights than their non-overweight peers in direct response to teasing about appearance. Teasing, rejection, and social isolation experienced by overweight children can be so extreme that the overweight child begins to truant from school. Overweight adolescents also have higher rates of terminating their schooling prematurely.
How schools can help overweight children to succeed academically
Obesity certainly has an effect on school performance, but clearly, schools can also have an affect on obesity by focusing on prevention and treatment. Intervening at early grade levels provides a greater opportunity for healthy change. Teachers can play a role in the process by encouraging healthy eating habits, incorporating physical activity into the day, and expanding nutrition education. A few examples include:
- Modeling good eating habits and physical activity. Students look up to their teachers, and when teachers talk about the healthy foods they eat and the exercises they do, students are likely to want to imitate similar activities. Teachers can encourage their students’ participation in sports and physical education, particularly among adolescent girls, whose activity levels decrease during this developmental period.
- Offering non-food items as rewards. Teachers who reinforce positive behavior with food (usually sweets) link good behavior with sugary items. As a result, there is an increased likelihood that teachers are making these types of food even more desirable to children. Children also learn to eat in the absence of hunger. Teachers should consider using other items, such as stickers for young children, or privileges for older children as rewards instead.
- Teachers can sponsor a physical activity challenge between classrooms in which students within each class monitor their physical activity and earn points for their classrooms. Inexpensive pedometers can be used to track number of steps taken per day or parents can be recruited to sign off on daily/physical activities done after-school hours.
- Teachers can incorporate nutrition lessons into science curricula by having children grow and tend to their own vegetables. Homework can involve children’s selection of healthier food options brought from home to substitute for their normal lunch.
- Advocating for healthier food policies in school is another important role teachers can play. Prohibiting fundraisers that involve the sale of candy and other foods can also convey a valuable message regarding the importance of appropriate food selection. Calling upon school administration to make healthier foods available, in vending machines as well as school lunches; promoting safe walking/biking to school; and participating in task forces and committees to develop school nutrition and physical activity standards are all practical and useful ways that teachers can make a difference.
- Teachers can help create a school culture of acceptance, foster positive body image, and decrease risk of stigmatization by developing a health class curriculum that includes information about size and shape diversity and body image concerns. Helping students understand advertising ploys that promote body image dissatisfaction can remove some of the societal pressure to meet thinness ideals.
- Teachers who monitor students’ eating, in either the classroom or the cafeteria, should be careful not to encourage overeating. Prompting children to finish all their food can inadvertently teach them to eat beyond the point of satiety. Rather, teachers can encourage children to eat slowly and to pay attention to signs of fullness.