School Grades and Standardized Test Scores of Children with and Without Obesity in South-East Mexico

Abstract

Background: Obesity has negative impact on health and socialization. Previous studies found that children with obesity have lower grades, but it is unclear: a) if specific subject might affect their grade point averages, b) if the results of standardized tests and school grades are the same for children with and without obesity in a community where pediatric obesity is highly prevalent. Objectives: The current study aimed to compare school grades and standardized test scores of children with and without obesity in a probabilistic sample of primary school children from Southern Mexico, where overweight/obesity is highly prevalent. Methods: The study measured a probabilistic sample of 2971 children going to public primary schools in Merida, Mexico, transformed the anthropometric data into body mass index (BMI) z-scores according the world health organization (WHO) reference values and categorized children according to their BMI status, and the scores they obtained in national standardized tests (n = 2791). The study analyzed the association between children with/without obesity and their academic performance in terms of school grades and standardized tests using mean comparison T-tests and multinomial logistic regression models using Stata 12. Results: Differences were observed between obese and non-obese children in overall grade point averages; however, no differences were observed on national standardized academic test scores. In analyzing specific academic subject areas, no differences were observed in grades for math, literature, social sciences, life sciences and art. The only significant difference observed was in the grade for physical education with obese students earning lower grades than their non-obese counterparts. Conclusions: There were no significant differences between the children with obesity and those without obesity in standardized tests. Students without obesity had significantly higher grade point average than their peers with obesity (8.4 and 8.5, respectively; P < 0.000).

Association between overweight and obesity with school performance in secondary students in Merida, Mexico

“…The school type was used as an indicator of the students' socioeconomic conditions; in the local context, technical secondary schools receive students in more adverse socioeconomic conditions compared to the rest of the schools. Previous works indicate that students with Mayan ancestry tend to show a different academic performance from the rest of the population 26 . The category of normal BMI and the following socioeconomic categories were used as references in the models' specification: first grade of secondary school, general school and without Mayan surnames.…”

Rendimiento académico y su relación con el estado nutricional. Escolares, Unidad Educativa del Milenio Sayausí. Cuenca-Ecuador

“…Sayausí según el IMC, coincidiendo con lo expresado por diversos autores que también manifiestan la existencia de significancia estadística en esta relación por lo que el padecer algún tipo de malnutrición sea esta desnutrición, sobrepeso u obesidad representan un factor de riesgo modificador en el aprovechamiento de los escolares, que se ve reflejado en la disminución de sus promedios (Ayalew et al, 2020;Carlos Salazar-Rendón et al, 2018), contrastando así con los resultados de Torres y colaboradores quienes no encontraron relación entre el estado nutricional y el rendimiento académico (Torres Medicis et al, 2017), así mismo otros autores tampoco han encontrado relación entre estas dos variables y se cree que esto se debe a las diferencias de los grupos de edad y características sociodemográficas de las poblaciones estudiadas (Carter et al, 2010;Flores Benjamín, 2009;Mendez et al, 2017).…”

Asociación entre el sobrepeso y la obesidad con el rendimiento académico en estudiantes de secundaria de la ciudad de Mérida, México

“…El tipo de escuela fue utilizado como un indicador de las condiciones socioeconómicas de los estudiantes; en el contexto local, las escuelas secundarias técnicas reciben estudiantes en condiciones socioeconómicas adversas respecto al resto de las escuelas. Estudios previos señalan que los estudiantes con ascendencia maya tienden a mostrar un desempeño académico distinto al resto de la población 26 .…”