CORRELATION BETWEEN ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AND OBESITY IN SCHOOL-CHILDREN FROM ANAND DISTRICT

Abstract

Background: Growing childhood obesity epidemic is concerning the health of future generation in any country. Today’s competitive world is increasing the never ending pressure on children to excel in academic performance to ensure bright future. Hence, it is the need of the hour to understand the correlation between obesity and academic performance for implementation of the policies related to obesity prevention and treatment.
Methods: 1034 school children were taken randomly according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, and they were divided into two groups: a) 5-11 years and b) 12-18 years. BMI (BMI), Waist Circumference (WC), the Waist-Height ratio (WHtR) and SSFT (Sum of Skinfold thickness) were taken to measure obesity, and the class teacher evaluated academic performance.
Results: The prevalence of obesity when assessed by WC revealed highest values as compared to Waist-Height ratio, IOTF-BMI and SSFT. Spearman correlation between obesity (WC) and academic performance revealed that there was a significant negative moderate correlation in urban boys (r = -0.4, p<0.05) and girls (r = -0.3, p<0.05) of 5 -11 years’ age-group. There was no significant (r ranging from -0.02 to -0.7, p>0.05) correlation between obesity and academic performance in boys and girls of 12-18 years’ age-group.
Conclusions: It is also concluded from the present study that obesity and academic performance of school children were negatively correlated in boys and girls of 5 -11 years of age but it was not found in 12-18 years of age. Influence of various confounding factors could not be isolated which could have also impacted the academic performance of the child.