The Effect of School on Overweight in Childhood: Gain in Body Mass Index During the School Year and During Summer Vacation

Hippel, Paul T. von; Powell, Brian; Downey, Douglas B.; Rowland, Nicholas J.

doi:10.2105/ajph.2005.080754

Cited by 281 publications

(339 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Given the summer months are particularly risky for youth weight gain/obesity (von Hippel, et al, 2007), access and participation in organized activity settings, like summer day camps, can be critical for minimizing summer sedentary behaviors and maintaining a healthy weight (e.g., Jago & Baranowski, 2004;Mahoney et al, 2011). With approximately 30% of our observations across each camp day consisting of youth participation in MVPA, our findings support researchers' and practitioners' claims that summer camp settings provide adequate opportunities for youth to meet the nationally recommended 60 minutes of daily MVPA.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite popular notions of summer as a highly active time for youth, the risk for obesity is actually higher during the summer than the school year. For example, data from a large national data set indicated the rate of children's BMI increase during summer was more than double the rate during the school year (von Hippel, et al, 2007). Results also showed that the gaps in obesity between African-American or Hispanic children and their White counterparts are driven largely by BMI increases during the summer.…”

Section: Summer Day Camps and Youth Obesity Preventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Researchers have speculated that the summer break from schools may result in less structured days for children leading to months of less physical activity and less healthy diet (e.g., Carrel, Clark, Peterson, Eickhoff, & Allen, 2007;von Hippel, et al, 2007), however, few studies have examined what activities youth engage in during the summer months or the characteristics/quality of those activities for promoting health (Jago & Baranowski, 2004;Mahoney, et al, 2011). A study by Mahoney and his colleagues (2011) was the only published study elicited from an extensive literature search that examined the nature of youth summertime activities and its relation to youth health.…”

Section: Summer Day Camps and Youth Obesity Preventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the summer months represent the largest amount of consecutive out-of-school-time (OST) for the majority of American youth, and the time of the year when the risk for youth weight gain is highest (von Hippel, Powell, Downey, & Rowland, 2007), summer camps may be a critical resource for prevention of obesity and related disease. However, no studies to-date, have measured: 1) the degree to which youth engage in PA within the summer day camp setting, nor; 2) to what extent camp settings provide important physical and social-motivational features for promoting PA.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Camp Setting for Promoting Youth Physical Activity: Systematic Observations of Summer Day Camps

Zarrett

Skiles

Sorensen

2012

JYD

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Abstract:The risk for youth obesity is higher during the summer than any other time of year. Summer day camps can be ideal settings for preventing obesity through reducing youth summer sedentary behaviors. However, little-to-no research has examined the role of camps for promoting youth physical activity (PA) and other healthy behaviors. This study begins to address the gap in research by conducting systematic observations of 4 summer day camps (2 highly-resourced and 2 low-resourced) to determine: 1) the degree to which camps engage youth in moderate-to-vigorous (MV) PA, and; 2) to what extent camps provide important physical and social-motivational features for promoting PA. Results indicate camps provide opportunities for youth to meet national recommendations of daily MVPA. However, there were differences in PA and motivational features by level of camp resources. This study helps inform practice and policy through identifying strengths and needs of camps for promoting PA.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Summer Day Camps and Youth Obesity Preventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Summer Day Camps and Youth Obesity Preventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Camp Setting for Promoting Youth Physical Activity: Systematic Observations of Summer Day Camps

Zarrett

Skiles

Sorensen

2012

JYD

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“…Although evidence of an identified need is not sufficient to justify government intervention in this area, it is nevertheless necessary. In this respect, evidence of accelerated weight gain (8)(9)(10) among children during the summer months and speculation that this may be related to dietary intake prompted Tilley et al (11) to systematically document the contents of home-packed lunches brought by children and staff to four large-scale summer day camps. Their findings, that few lunches contained fruits and vegetables while many contained unhealthy snacks, provide empirical verification that children's diets during the summer months may indeed be nutritionally poor and support extension of nutrition policies to out-of-school settings.…”

Section: The Need For Nutrition Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing child-focused nutrition policies: considerations and controversies

Olstad¹,

Ball²

2015

Public Health Nutr.

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Optimizing child-focused nutrition policies: considerations and controversies Unhealthy dietary behaviours and obesity among children are among the most pressing public health issues worldwide, given their high prevalence and association with negative health outcomes (1). Governments internationally are grappling with how to approach these issues from a policy perspective, ideally seeking solutions grounded in science. By enacting policy, it is anticipated that governments may be able to effectively and equitably address underlying nutrition and obesity-related risk factors at a population level, with limited effort on the part of individuals. Compared with individually targeted dietary interventions, population-level nutrition policies can offer larger and more sustained benefits for population health and at a lower cost to society (2,3). Policy is also enduring because it codifies change and survives transitions in leadership (4). As such, it can become incorporated into social norms. Schools have become a focal point for policy development as it pertains to children's nutrition, given strong consensus that school food provision should support and not undermine child health. However, the impact of current school nutrition policies on children's dietary behaviours and body weights has been mixed (5-7) , suggesting a need for more comprehensive policies that engage with additional aspects of school food environments and that also extend beyond schools. Controversies inevitably arise during policy development, however, and several papers in this issue of Public Health Nutrition tackle some of the more contentious issues pertaining to child nutrition policies, such as the need for, content, format and potential unintended negative consequences of policy.

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Free Summer Programming and Body Mass Index Among Schoolchildren From Low-Income Households

Beets,

Burkart,

Pfledderer

et al. 2024

JAMA Pediatr

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ImportanceChildren experience accelerated gains in body mass index (BMI) during the summer months when school is not in session. Children from low-income households are most susceptible. Accelerated BMI gain in summer may be due to the removal of the health-promoting structure provided by schools. During summer, a common form of health-promoting structure is summer day camps (SDCs). Summer day camps are predominately fee for service, which creates a financial barrier for children from low-income households. One solution to mitigate accelerated BMI gain is providing free access to an existing SDC.ObjectiveTo investigate whether providing free access to an existing community SDC can mitigate accelerated BMI z score (zBMI) gain in elementary school–age children.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsThis randomized clinical trial was conducted during the summers of 2021, 2022, and 2023 in the southeastern United States. Participants were children (kindergarten through fourth grade) from predominantly low-income households who were randomized to attend an SDC operated by a parks and recreation commission or continue summer as usual (control).InterventionFree SDC every weekday (Monday through Friday) for 8 to 10 weeks.Main Outcomes and MeasuresThe primary outcome was between-group differences in change of zBMI measured before school ended (May) and on return to school from summer (late August). Secondary analyses examined the dose response of zBMI change with parent-reported child attendance at SDCs during the summer for all children (intervention and control).ResultsA total of 422 children (mean [SD] age, 8.2 [1.5] years; 202 [48%] female, 220 [52%] male, 292 [69%] at or below 200% federal poverty level, 127 [30%] with food insecurity) were randomized to 1 of 2 conditions: summer as usual (control, n = 199) or free SDC (n = 223). Intent-to-treat analysis indicated mean (SE) change in zBMI at the end of the summer was 0.046 (0.027) for the control and −0.048 (0.025) for the intervention group, representing a significant between-group difference of −0.094 (95% CI, −0.166 to −0.022). Dose-response analyses indicated that every 1 day per week increase in attending an SDC resulted in a −0.034 to −0.018 zBMI reduction, which translates to a gain of 0.046 to 0.080 zBMI for children never attending summer programming vs −0.09 to −0.04 zBMI reduction for children attending summer programming every weekday.Conclusions and RelevanceProviding children free access to existing community summer programming can have a meaningful effect on children’s zBMI gain during the summer. Future studies should replicate these findings across different regions and identify the optimal dose of programming to mitigate unhealthy zBMI gains.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04072549

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The Effect of School on Overweight in Childhood: Gain in Body Mass Index During the School Year and During Summer Vacation

Abstract: Although a school's diet and exercise policies may be less than ideal, it appears that early school environments contribute less to overweight than do nonschool environments.

Cited by 281 publications

References 26 publications

The Camp Setting for Promoting Youth Physical Activity: Systematic Observations of Summer Day Camps

The Camp Setting for Promoting Youth Physical Activity: Systematic Observations of Summer Day Camps

Optimizing child-focused nutrition policies: considerations and controversies

Free Summer Programming and Body Mass Index Among Schoolchildren From Low-Income Households

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