Obese elementary school students more likely to be worse at math

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(CBS News) Children's math abilities may have as much to do with their bellies as it does with their brains.

A new study finds obese children are more likely to be worse at math than their skinnier classmates.

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The study, published in the June 14 issue of Child Development, involved 6,250 children from an ongoing government study that tracks kindergarteners through the time they're in fifth grade, and reflects a nationally representative sample of kids. At five points throughout that duration, researchers gathered information from parents and teachers about children's social skills, emotional well-being and academic abilities, along with measuring their heights and weights.

The researchers discovered that kids who were persistently obese from the start of kindergarten through fifth grade performed significantly worse on math tests by the time they reached first grade, as compared with boys and girls who were never obese. For boys whose obesity started later - in third or fifth grade - no drops in math were found, but girls who became obese at later ages showed a temporary decline in math skills.

But obesity negatively affected the children beyond their multiplication tables. The study found that girls who were persistently obese had fewer social and interpersonal skills. Boys and girls who were obese throughout the study also reported feeling sadder, lonelier and more anxious - which the researchers say could have contributed to their math performance.

"The findings illustrate the complex relationships among children's weight, social and emotional well-being, academics and time," study author Sara Gable, an associate professor of nutrition and exercise physiology, at the University of Missouri-Columbia said in a written statement. "Our study suggests that childhood obesity, especially obesity that persists throughout the elementary grades, can harm children's social and emotional well-being and academic performance."

Does a child's obesity cause these social, emotional and academic problems, or is the other way around? Dr. Becky Hashim, a clinical child psychologist with the Children's Hospital at Montefiore, in New York City, who was not involved in the study, told Health.com that being obese could weaken social skills if a child grows isolated from bullying or the stigma from being overweight. However she also said kids with poor social skills might become sad and turn to food as a source of comfort. In other words, it's complicated.

"Feelings of sadness or loneliness or anxiety in and of themselves may get in the way of school performance," Hashim told Health.com. "It may be more difficult to pay attention. These kids may be less likely to ask a question."

[radfatty]

I would like to recommend the free NAAFA Child Advocacy ToolkitSM (CATK) and other written guidelines/resources to assist you looking at programs. The total health of our nation's children is a serious responsibility.

The NAAFA Child Advocacy Toolkit shows how Health At Every Size® takes the focus off weight and directs it to healthful eating and enjoyable movement. It addresses the bullying, building positive self-image and eliminating stigmatization of large children. Additionally, the CATK lists resources available to parents and educators or caregivers for educational materials, curriculum and programming that is beneficial for all children. It can be found at:
http://issuu.com/naafa/docs/naafa_childadvocacy2011combined_v04?viewMode=magazine&mode=embed

It is my hope that you will take this opportunity to look at the information held in the CATK and keep what is included in mind when making decisions regarding the children in your charge.

[lillyhorton]

Some people see fat as a contageous disease. Teachers spend more time with certain children than others possibly due to some subliminal messages that being over weight equates to being a slow learner. Since over wieght tends to run in families each generation fails to be able to help the next. So what does the study say about people who become over weight later like in high school? Do they sudenly forget what they learned? How about weight gain in adulthood? Do overwieght adults have trouble balancing their checkbooks?

[docww]

We have known about this connection between obesity and cognitive performance for years. It is now clear that excessive fructose from sugar and HFCS drives insulin resistance and central obesity. When you consume rapidly absorbed carbohydrates and have insulin resistance, your brain is subjected to toxic glucose spikes. These glucose spikes eventually cause mitochondrial dysfunction and lead to depletion of important neurotransmitters such as dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin.

Initially this leads to a situation where you start to crave sweet and starchy foods—the very foods that are frying your brain. At this point you have a condition we call "sugar-brain". Because it takes a healthy brain to auto-regulate fat stores, when you have sugar-brain you start to store extra total body fat even when you are dieting to lose weight. That's how you end up with normal sized "obese" people—they have too much fat in their body even if their weight and BMI are normal. In a sense people with sugar-brain are stuck in a bear-in-fall metabolic mode where they store extra fat regardless of how much food they eat.

Over time sugar-brain can transition to a serious chronic medical condition called Carbohydrate Associated Reversible Brain syndrome or CARB syndrome. People with CARB syndrome develop up to 22 brain dysfunction symptoms that interfere with their ability to function and they continue to store a lot of extra fat. At this stage they are often incorrectly diagnosed with depression, ADHD, PTSD, eating disorders, bipolar II, anxiety disorders, fibromyalgia and similar conditions. Children with CARB syndrome have difficulty functioning in academic situations because their brain isn't functioning normally.

[alphaa10000]

Fascinating-- where is this developed at greater length? Can you recommend studies and/or book titles?

Your concise summary of insulin insensitivity, associated glucose spikes and a fast-carbohydrate (high GI) diet brings together not only the latest diet findings, but a bestiary of metabolic dysfunctions.

We might be forgiven for believing our public health policy should reflect growing evidence of hazard from fructose, but it does not. It is widely suspected that neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta, ardent fructose opponent and Obama nominee for Surgeon General of the United States, "withdrew" his candidacy after certain members of congress got persuasive phone calls from the grain lobby (ADM, Cargill, etc.).

[hypnotoad72]

Happy calorie-counting...

[credibility2]

How do these stats compare to poorly performing grade school kids born into non-English speaking households using the same criteria of age in relation to grade level?

[hypnotoad72]

Interesting point to bring up, thanks!

[liveloveforgod]

The food was changed in the USA, UK and Australia 30 years ago when dangerous food chemicals from the USA was allowed into European. The food today causes stubborn insulin If you have stubborn insulin you hold fat and have a hard time losing weight. You can eat very little and the weight still does not come off. Stubborn insulin will hold fat and diets won't work. When researchers used a specialized diabetes diet on overweight people all lost weight even those who did not have diabetes.

just google SPIRIT HAPPY DIET

[alphaa10000]

"Stubborn" insulin is better understood as insulin resistance, and refers to resistance from cells to normal levels of insulin. In this situation, the effect of insulin is "weaker" (not more 'stubborn") than it should be.

Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin-dependent_diabetes_mellitus