“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….” [Rest of article]
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Parenthetically, I was just at the University of Texas in Austin a week ago. Wonderful campus. I want to live in Austin!
This is yet another example of how poor parenting impacts later life to such a tragic extent. I remember some uproar a year or so back about a couple of cases where authorities were considering removing grossly obese children from the home, citing obvious parental neglect. On the one hand, that is a dangerous precedent; on the other, I always think “parental neglect” whenever I see an obese child. Sad, sad, sad…
Society will split and there will be a healthier wealthy class, and an obese lower class.
One day, evolution will cause these classes to diverge as a species. Assuredly, the obeasts will become milk-mammals to the wealthy.
Comment by C — March 10, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
But bad health decisions don’t cause bad financial and educational decisions—these are all consequencse of bad decision-making in general. It’s like this study was written by a third-grade mind with a myopic understanding of causes, effects, and statistical information armed with the belief that people are incapabable of rationality are merely blindly pulled along by societal trends…
…”The author of the study was Robert Crosnoe a sociologist at the University of Texas.” Aha, mystery solved.
But it’s good to hear the girls at UT are hot, wish me luck on my grad school app! You’re dead on about Austin though, and either way I’m moving there in June!
Comment by Chris C — March 10, 2008 @ 4:30 pm