Obesity is creating a catch twenty-two for a segment of the adolescent population. Girls have been found that they are much less likely to attend college if they are obese throughout high school in the United States. It is well known that a college education helps reduce the probability of obesity and reduces lifetime health expenses. A study released at the Economics of Population Health in 2008, made the claim of a college education impacting the college students life in ways such as reducing obesity, reducing smoking and increasing income. You can read the study here.
With a startling rate of up to half of all females that are obese in high school when compared to non-obese girls not attending college, they are found in a downward spiral of obesity, health problems and low income. It is well documented that low income lifestyles also increase the likelihood of obesity, magnifying the current problem. If a move is not made in American schools to help the growing waistline in females, the statistics will only rise and we will find ourselves with an ever faster growing obese population.
The study finding that obese girls are 50 percent less likely to attend college than non-obese girls was completed at the University of Texas at Austin. The author of the study was Robert Crosnoe a sociologist at the University of Texas. To read the article from the University press department on the conclusions of the study you can visit here. Mr. Crosnoe said, “Obese girls were less likely to enter college after high school than were their non-obese peers, especially when they attended schools in which obesity was relatively uncommon.” Obesity was derived from calculating the individuals with the highest body mass index (BMI), a ratio of weight to height.
The complete study carried out by Crosnoe used data that was tabulated on around 11,000 adolescents from 128 schools and was completed for the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The goal of the research was to study how obesity predicts maladjustment and how that same situation predicts whether the teens attend college. After the study was completed it was lauded as the most comprehensive study completed on teens from middle school to high school.
Besides finding that the obese girls were less apt to attend college, the study also found that obese girls had higher class failure and self-rejection. The class failure rates among obese girls ran at 24 percent higher than non-obese students in the same schools. As can be expected the self-rejection rates were high among the obese girls which amounted to almost 63 percent more than non-obese students.
A study done by the National Institute of Health in 2004, which you can read here, found obesity rates among girls that are 15 years old are 15.1 percent. As you go up in age the figure climbs to 17 percent of girls in high school. Boys were not left out of the study and were found to have obesity rates of 13.9 percent at age 15.
A quick look at obese adolescent boys in the University of Texas study found that there were no significant changes in their likelihood of college attendance. Researchers feel the lack of effect to boys was due to public images and pressure on girls to be thin and the media presentation of beauty in young girls and women. “That girls are far more vulnerable to the non-health risks of obesity reinforces the notion that body image is more important to girls’ self-concept and that social norms have greater effects on the education of girls than boys,” Crosnoe said in reference to the study.
Solutions have been discussed on the administrative level at schools. People involved with brainstorming feel that tolerance education needs to be increased in the curriculum’s to help the acceptance of obese girls. While creating a more tolerant attitude is a great step, the real education needs to be done to increase health education and better lifestyle changes. If the chain is not broken, obese girls will find themselves obese women without college educations and passing those values down to their children.
Business Shrink radio show listeners and blog readers, what do you think the solution is? Do you feel money should be allocated into programs for better health education and tolerance curriculum’s? Is this a chain that can be broken? We’d love to hear what your thoughts and solutions are to this growing obesity epidemic that is creating more problems in all areas of adolescent girl’s lives.
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