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.
I wonder if the emphasis on college sports might have something to do with this. Many times athletes will recieve full scholarships, while intelligent students with good grades who are not athleticly inclined have to fund their own college eduction.
Mary
You guys are right. Increasing tolerance education? Really? Why not just fix the problem? What really needs to happen is that America needs to start attacking the roots of the problem, not covering it up with tolerance education and pharmaceutical remedies. Instead of sitting in front of the television all day eating chips, GO OUT AND PLAY! Get some fresh air!
1. Some poor people are obese.
2. All poor people cannot afford college
It follows,
3. Some obese people cannot afford college.
Its not because they are fat, it is because they are probably poor.
Mary,
The majority of those sports scholarships are going to males, where-as the observed problem exists only in the female demographic.
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Perhaps someone with low self esteem would 1) have a eating order because of their low self esteem, therefore be obese and 2) because of low self esteem, feel that they were not “good enough” to go to college.
It may be nothing more than low self esteem that triggers both.
This whole analysis is retarded. Stupid people are 1) more likely to be fat and 2) less likely to go to college. This is not anything the government can fix through tolerance or fitness initiatives. This cannot be fixed until STUPID is fixed. In other words, don’t hold your breath for these stats to change.
@Jeremy
Funny point; reminds me of George Carlin:
“If you want to know how stupid people really are, just think how stupid the average person is and realize that half of them are stupider.”
Even though stupider isn’t really a word
proves the point I guess
I would have to say that Jeremy is on the right track. This nation has come way too far in the direction of “coddling” people. Nobody takes responsibility for their own actions anymore. People sue people for no reason, the government has all sorts of ridiculous laws that are completely unnecessary. They make these laws to appease their voters, but in the end they are just safeguards for stupid people. I say get rid of these laws and let stupid people pay for their mistakes and stupidity. Why should McDonalds pay for some stupid woman who decided to drive with a hot cup of coffee between her legs. If I were that judge I’d say “Learned a really good lesson there didn’t we? Don’t drive with hot liquids between your legs retard.” The point is that there isn’t a problem here, it’s just people trying to get money and jobs that don’t even need to exist.
Tolerance education will do very little… sure the girls may not be called “fat” anymore… but they are still unlikely to get many dates… and they will be quick to put 2 and 2 together.
Obesity will only be recognized once people get some hard facts (like this article). We are finally starting to realize how terribly bad cigarette smoking is (40 years later) and people are gradually quitting… the same thing can (and should) be done with obesity… don’t teach tolerance! we have become very intolerant with smokers and I think its a good thing.
Does being fat make someone ignorant? Or is ignorance the reason why people are fat?
There are plenty of reasons for someone to be fat, but a good reason is that they don’t know how to manage their own diet.
It’s amazing how many people are fat and malnourished at the same time. Among fat people there are the people who are fat because of genetics and the others that don’t know how to take care of themselves. If they are too dumb for that, then it’s reasonable to suggest that they are also too dumb for college.
A lot of you are trying to be way too deep regarding this topic. Obesity is not a disease, it’s a state of being that is reached by being lazy and having no self control (I do understand, though, that there are a small handful of medical disorders that could cause someone who eats right and exercises to still be overweight). I have no pity for willingly obese people. I’ll move out of the country before I allow my tax dollars to fund tolerance programs geared towards the obese. How about we fund tolerance programs for IMPORTANT things that people really have no control over, such as race and disabilities?
I’m not saying that we should show no mercy towards the obese. They are people who deserve respect. No one has the right to say nasty things to them or make them feel bad about themselves in any way. However, I definitely believe that it would be wrong to tiptoe around their conditions. We should encourage healthy lifestyles and educate people as to how to lead them.
Obesity has a lot to do with self-esteem, but it can also cause problems with self-esteem. It is a destructive cycle. I do agree with the people here–we don’t need tolerance for people who choose to have poor health, we need to setup ways in which to help them overcome their emotional and health problems. However that doesn’t mean it’s okay to screw with someone because of their weight. You don’t have to pity them–just don’t be an arse.
As far as obesity and intelligence–BS. There are plenty of smart people who are overweight. It has no correlation. Performance in a course does not equal intelligence. It is part hard work, part confidence. If you remove the confidence, you also remove the ability to concentrate on the hard work required of you.
Also, if you actually read the article, it says obesity doesn’t affect boys’ chances of getting into college. If it was a matter of intelligence we’d be seeing the same rates for boys and girls. Plus you don’t have to be *smart* to get good grades in high school and get into a halfway-decent college. You *smart* people here seem to be making a lot of assumptions–a sign of ignorance which you seem to so deplore.
That said, I know plenty of genius-level people who don’t take care of their health. It is prioritization, not stupidity, that causes obesity and other preventable health problems. That’s not to say being stupid doesn’t make you more prone–but “intellectuals” sometimes get so absorbed in their work that their health becomes a secondary concern.
Wow. I have to say I’m not sure why I would expect anything less from the internet than ridiculous assumptions that somehow being obese makes you less of a person. I think the real problematic issues are articles like these. Being obese has nothing to do with low grades and lack of educational momentum.
The true culprits are poverty and self-esteem. When you have little to no money, you can’t afford food with a high nutritive content and a future in higher education. Furthermore, who could imagine succeeding when they’re constantly told what a failure as a person they are. Lack of self esteem stems from living in a society where the obese aren’t considered equal people.
Nevertheless, it is sad when parents abuse their children and being overweight doesn’t become a choice or genetic disposition, but the result of a shame spiral. We treat anorexia and bulimia like psychological/eating disorders, but not obesity. Either they are all clinical disorders (and not laziness) or none of them. People with low self worth should be treated for such, not by slapping a lap-band on and shoving metabolic boosters down their throats.
Finally, I am a highly active, clinically obese person with a college degree and a career. I don’t know why it’s so difficult for our society to accept that some people would choose to look this way for the simple matter of ascetics. I don’t want sensitivity training, I want people to shut their mouths. I personally find thin people visually unappealing and will always choose to be overweight, but I don’t make it my business to let every thin person I see know how I feel about their looks.
Recently I’ve had daily first hand exposure to people who are obese. I’ve made some conclusions from my observations (these are generalizations but based on what I’ve seen).
Obesity is a VERY complex problem for people who are obese. Noone wants to be fat. If you really want to lose weight then the most important ingredient is determination. Unfortunately, someone can hate being overweight but at the same time not possess the determination required to no longer be overweight. This phenomenon makes no sense to me but it exists. The result is that the problem of obesity is extremely complex when you don’t have the tools to fix it and it’s nothing anyone else can give you.
Obesity is a VERY simple problem for people who don’t have issues with obesity. Diet and excercise. For the majority it doesn’t have to be extreme…just some long lasting adjustments.
This creates a problem in that non obese people can’t understand why obese people are obese…and obese people can’t understand why non obese people think it’s so easy to fix.
This doesn’t even touch on the “emotional” aspect of obesity. Being obese doesn’t help anyone’s self esteem out. However, in my observations I think that the emotional excuse is just that…an excuse. However, it’s very real to someone who’s obese. So there exists two separate realities…one in which it’s the obese person’s fault…and another in which it’s not completely the obese person’s fault.
It’s such a mess…and I have no idea what a possible solution is. It’s as simple as diet and excercise and as complicated as emotionally relating food to cover up problems and neither party understanding each other.
Nonetheless…it sucks. It’s unhealthy. And becoming tolerant of obesity is the dumbest thing I’ve heard. i know enough to know that definitely isn’t going to help things.
Aly: A tolerance policy IS respect or “not engaging in name-calling or degradation”, genius. That’s the very point. How do you viciously argue against tolerance for obese people and in the same paragraph claim these people should still be respected? The intelligence level in this thread is dangerously low.
Speaking of pathetic reading comprehension, another fool (Hans) vastly misrepresented all of the relevant facts of the McDonalds case. She wasn’t driving; that’s a lie. She was in a parked vehicle in the McDonalds parking lot. She wasn’t in the driver’s seat; that’s a lie. She was in the passenger seat and her nephew drove from the drive-thru to a parking spot, and when the car was turned off, she attempted to put creamer/ sugar in her coffee. The plaintiff wasn’t negligent at all, being that she wasn’t driving with super hot coffee between her legs; she was in a nonmoving vehicle doing what normal people do to their coffee after they get it.
The reason (and try to pay close attention here, because I know logic and reason is very difficult to comprehend) that this elderly woman was burned so severely in her genital region and legs that she required skin grafts for the third degree burns was because McDonald’s served dangerously hot coffee, at temperatures significantly higher than the FDA recommendations. Serving coffee at the recommended temperatures wouldn’t have burned the old lady’s body immediately on contact and would have allowed her to escape with perhaps 2nd degree burns instead. McDonald’s believed this was a good business decision, because any of the injuries customers suffered (by the way, there were HUNDREDS more claims in addition to the one we are discussing) would cost less to pay off than the potential profits gained by serving obscenely and dangerously hot coffee that would remain hot until people arrived at work.
That is a decision their corporation made in contravention of regulations because McDonalds perceived a financial benefit to ignoring those regulations. Serving inappropriately hot coffee is negligence. That is why she won. She also did not win as much money as anyone thinks. She won just a little bit more than her actual bills, which McDonalds refused to pay initially when she sent them a letter requesting her medical bills alone, and the reported award was reduced by a later judge nearly by 90%. Get your facts straight, and quit misrepresenting cases you know little about to attempt to awkwardly prove some inane point about how obese people deserve to be ridiculed and mistreated because some old lady spilled coffee on her lap.
I hope to god neither of you have educations either, because that proves the failures of the educational system more effectively than the lack of access obese people may have to it.
Points:
1. Poor people are more likely to be obsese and therefore less likely to go to college
2. Poor women and women with low self esteem ( see fat people ) are more likely to have kids a young age which makes it difficult to go to college. Hence why it affects women more than men.
3. Lazy people ( see fat people, yes i believe fat people are in general more lazy ) are less likely to have the modivation to finish college.
PS: Americans are fat.. whats wrong with calling someone fat who is. Maybe it will change their lifestyle.
I think it’s more about having a miserable time in high school. If your an obese teen female in the typical american high school your going to be miserable. Kids are mean and when they torture you at school every day school becomes a much less appealing place to be. So these girls are going to pay less attetion in school or skip to get away from the mockery, which will effect their grades. Poor grades + average income = a obese teenage girl who isn’t going to college.
It’s sad to be a fat girl in America. Unfortunately, body image affects how you live your life, & the choices you make.
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America has a massive problem with media idolization. The uneducated and impressionable low-income female population have all odds against them due to shows they so zealously watch such as “America’s Next Top Model” or some equally socially manipulative “reality” show.
These are glorified and impractical standards for anyone to live up to, and the fact they are most often times unreachable should pretty logically lead to broader problems such as low self-esteem. Low self-esteem and what we know as clinical depression are obviously going to lead to an attitude that repels our admittedly frustrating and bureaucratic education system.
Ironically, they are being brainwashed through a medium that generally includes sitting still for hours at a time and exercising less brain power than any other everyday activity, including sleeping. The United States is the hub of the glitzy media world and its byproduct of superficial and wasteful mentalities — it should be no surprise it’s also increasingly becoming the most physically, mentally, and emotional unfit developed country.
Politicians are elected by gaining support of particular demographics at the expense of creating politically correct eggshells for the masses to walk on; physicians are employed at the epxense of diagnosing questionably legitimate “diseases”; the masses are kept complacent and apathetic towards these problems through means of the television. Until the overall negatives to society that come with obesity overpower individual gain that comes with it — and until everyone stops and thinks of longer lifespans and physically able as a benefit to civilization rather than if it merely affects them or not — nothing will happen.
This goes for any other problem the United States seems to be plagued by more than other developed countries, such as the crime rate. Everyone knows that Americans aren’t just unfortunate to possess more “fat genes” than people in other countries, and that there are many an excuse for personal responsibility going around. Suggesting that ‘people need to exercise more’ is not only absurdly obvious, it is incomplete.
The issue is that obesity is too convenient as a socio-economic tool for our ambitious self-serving entrepreneurs to pass up on. Do Slim-Fast shakes exist out of a genuine desire to help people lose weight? Do Prozac, Celexa, Zoloft,and other antidepressants continue to be formulated and marketed due to the efforts of some benevolent scientists?
Think again. Look at the big picture, people.
“The owner of a healthy body is the owner of a healthy mind.”
[…] failure rates were 24% higher for obese girls and self-rejection rates were 64% more in obese girls.read more | digg […]
The data does not necessarily lead to the conclusions… Just because obese girls are less likely to attend college, we can’t assume that the obesity is the cause.
For instance, according to many researchers, poorer people are more likely to be obese, because healthier foods are more expensive than their processed brethren (see http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040105071229.htm). Poorer people are also more likely to drop out of high school, and less likely to go to college.
Thus, a third variable, such as poverty (or underlying psychological issues etc.), may be causing both the obesity and the low college attendance. We can’t assume discrimination just yet.
[…] “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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