Walk into just about any public high school in the U.S. and you will see a lot of the kids overweight or obese. In fact, 40 percent (!) are. This disturbing finding has not gone unnoticed in the White House where First Lady Michelle Obama has initiated the "Let's Move" campaign with its critical message that obesity is bad for our children's health, right now and into the future. But there is another message that has not yet reached the Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, or other educators seeking to improve education in this country: that message is that being overweight or obese interferes with a young person's ability to learn at school.
Last year I reported on an innovative program in a small group of public high schools in New York City, called The BODY Project (Banishing Obesity and Diabetes in Youth), that was screening students for excess weight, prediabetes and brain functioning (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lloyd-i-sederer-md/obesity-linked-to-poor-sc_b_646747.html).
The Huffington Post visited the Norman Thomas High School in Manhattan to see how the BODY project works in real life. (Video by Hunter Stuart)
WATCH:
More recent information from the The BODY Project shows that obese youth have problems with reading and arithmetic, memory, attention, and decision-making. Imagine how learning, and consequently school performance, will be impaired if you are having trouble in these essential areas of brain functioning. And, by the way, the more overweight youth are the more they experience the medical consequences of obesity, and the greater the difficulties they have -- in all these areas of cognitive functioning.
With so many children in our schools having trouble with exams, scores on standardized exams, staying in school and graduating maybe there is a cause we have not adequately recognized, or done anything about?
These overweight youth show specific problems with insulin (they are prediabetic); too much bad cholesterol and too little good cholesterol; and high blood pressure. The heavier a child is the more likely he or she will be to have the medical problems associated with obesity, namely sugar, cholesterol or blood pressure problems. Kids who are not overweight do not have these problems (with rare exceptions). Youth of color and living in poverty are the most at risk -- no surprise -- thereby potentially interfering with the opportunities that education provides them to escape their circumstances. But their fate is not sealed because we can reduce their risk of pre-diabetes, bad cholesterol and high blood pressure; we can do something about the medical problems that are impairing their brain function, the problems that make education their nemesis, not their friend.
What can be done?
We do vision exams because kids who cannot see cannot succeed in school. By the same logic, we need to test for the medical problems caused by being overweight: abnormal fasting blood sugar and insulin levels; good and bad cholesterol; and high blood pressure.
When students and their parents 'know their numbers' and the consequences of those numbers, they are more likely to do something about them. High school students are old enough to feel empowered to take responsibility for their health and education -- when we give them that chance. And they can see the results of their efforts as their health measures improve. We also get away from the horrors of calling kids 'fat', which does nothing for their self-esteem and has not been effective in reducing weight. People of all ages understand and are motivated to manage their 'numbers' (and doctors' practices are all about managing numbers like blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and a growing number of other measures of health and illness).
The BODY Project, developed by Dr. Antonio Convit, is actually doing something about improving the health and school performance of kids in NYC schools. First, all kids in the schools where they are working have their height and weight measured (these are the two measurements that give us the BMI -- body mass index).
Students with high BMIs are selected for the project because they are most at risk for sugar, cholesterol and BP problems -- and thus for problems with reading and arithmetic, memory, attention, and decision-making, problems that can impair school performance. Parental consent is obtained for these students, with their interest and support, so that Dr. Convit's team can take their blood pressure, sugar, insulin and cholesterol levels.
All kids get a user-friendly report of their medical results. The report illustrates, in English and Spanish, their results in a green, amber or red chart. Green is good, amber is a warning and red is bad. In addition, the entire family is instructed in what simple measures they can take to improve health -- lifestyle changes in food, activity, and smoking. Lifestyle changes are more likely to happen when there are abnormal numbers to inform and motivate change. In addition, those students with red results are contacted at home through their parents and encouraged to take action and see a medical professional.
Results
The BODY Project is reducing weight, blood pressure, bad cholesterol, and improving insulin functioning in those students it is serving. There is emerging evidence that the problems with brain functioning improve as the medical problems associated with obesity improve, as the student loses weight and becomes fitter.
The BODY Project is also measuring school grades and brain function to see if those get better too -- though results are not yet in. But if it were your child, what would you do? Would you wait, or maybe look for a way to help now?
Disclosure: Dr. Sederer is Acting Director of the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, the site of Dr. Convit's research (in conjunction with the New York University Langone Medical Center).
The opinions expressed herein are solely my own as a psychiatrist and public health advocate.
Dr. Sederer receives no support from any pharmaceutical or device company.
Visit Dr. Sederer's website at www.askdrlloyd.com -- for questions you want answered, reviews and stories.
Oz Garcia: Why Do We Think Overweight Is Normal?
Bonnie Modugno, M.S., R.D.: Fighting Child Obesity Starts in the Womb
Oz Garcia: Child Nutrition Act: 'Childhood Obesity Is a National Security Threat.'
Childhood Obesity - DASH/HealthyYouth
Childhood obesity: Make weight loss a family affair - MayoClinic.com
Obesity and School Lunches - NYTimes.com
Expert: School Lunches Failing Kids - The Early Show - CBS News
School Lunches To Get Healthier With New Gov't Rules - Huffington Post
Alice Waters: Want to Teach Democracy? Improve School Lunches
Nobody should feel attacked but it is a reality that the US has a huge obesity problem and I think therefore it is a great idea to screen children early enough to intervene and also give their parents information about what consequences this lifestyle will bring with it. In fact a lot of parents are not aware of all health implications which will occur in the future as a result of being overweight and obesed. I am form Europe and the probably smartest people there are from schweden. Ironically, there is no obesity problem in schweden, that lifestyle does not exist.
Moreover, as Pat already mentioned TriFit and FitnessGram are great tools to assess the fitness of students and it also shows the parents problem areas and makes them aware of their negative impact on the child's development.
Physical Education programs should receive more attention and I am glad that this is another article which shows the importance of PE programs in school. What they learn in a PE classroom is important for their whole life and as important as maths and English today!!
Or maybe, this entire concept is just poppycock, someone's looking for a scapegoat and as usual, fatties are an easy target. Yeah, I'm going to go with that one.
How about actually helping people instead of just demonizing fat kids? I grew up as one and trust me, the other kids will take care of that all on their own without your "help."
Oh, THAT’s why I was only twelfth in my class of 700+. Come to think of it, the valedictorian and salutatorian were both thin girls. That’s totally it! Finally it all becomes clear to me!
Me and my second-master’s-in-progress can give up now, as my almost-4.0-GPA (while working full-time and parenting a small child) must be an illusion. Fat’s clearly making me stupid and always has.
Has anyone considered that part of the reason fat children might be struggling academically is that they're faced with constant bullying and, in many cases, struggle with self-esteem issues as a result?
The Health At Every Size(SM) approach has been scientifically proven superior to the weight-loss approach. Weight-loss approaches inevitably reinforce stereotype, prejudice, discrimination, and stigma for fat people. Health At Every Size(SM) instead promotes social justice.
This program may have good intentions, but it runs the real risk of doing harm: psychological, physical, political.
In brief, Health At Every Size(SM) encourages people of all sizes to love their bodies instead of trying to lose weight. People are encouraged to follow internal cues of hunger and fullness, to eat a variety of nutritious foods. People are also encouraged to exercise joyfully, not out of duty or as punishment. In one piece of research comparing weight-loss treatment to Health At Every Size(SM) the weight-loss group saw no lasting weight loss, no lasting health improvements, and no lasting behavior change. The only lasting change was increased depressed and lower self-esteem. In the Health At Every Size(SM) group, people had no lasting weight loss, but they had lasting behavior improvements and lasting health improvements (bp, sugars, cholesterol).
Are we going to follow the scientific method? Or are we going to promote stereotypes?
A scientific approach would jettison the failed model of weight-loss interventions and adopt Health At Every Size(SM), an approach that celebrates weight diversity and actually improves health!
Let's face it. Pasta and bread are cheaper than veggies and fruits. Parents don't want their kids to be hungry and therefore will feed them what they can afford, and what they can buy the most of for their money.
Rather than trying to find a correlation between obesity and academic performance, why not sponsor a gym where these overweight youngsters can learn how to exercise in a healthy environment, provide family counseling in both lifestyle and culinary choices to the child's family--All this without the taunting from the more physically gifted. Then measure their academic performance with their attainment of optimal health.
These kids already know they're fat. Why not provide a solution rather than feeding the stigma of which they already live.
This study just seems like a total waste of money and effort.
These kids probably do know that theyre fat, but that doesn't mean they know what to do about it. The point of the program is to educate and inform them, and give them thre resources they need to lose wgt. Seems to me like a perfectly appropriate and reasonable intervention.
But you also seem to be making an assumption that its better for these children to remain obese, which I completely disagree with.
Its better to treat the life threatening condition that they have, then to not treat it for fear of some statistically improbable development of a later condition.
Of course the intervention should be informed and designed to mitigate any future complications. But fear of MAYBE developing an uncommon eating disorder is not a good reason to withhold intervention of an existing, life-threatening condition.
While we're at it, it's also nice to see we've found yet something else ot make schools responsible for. Haven't parents already abdicated enough responsibilities to the schools? We just keep adding more and more that schools are to be responsible for, thus taking away time from the academics that schools are actually intended to teach.
Now making sure your children aren't obese will become the schools' responsibility too??
I find it important that the issue should be addresed with facts instead of pushing it into emotional direction.Hopefully some kids will take the wake up call at school and won't feel dumber or bad about themselves later on.
I meant to include your second paragraph in my comment, too. ;)