A recent article in the Telegraph summarises some research carried out by Bristol, Strathclyde and Dundee Universities. The article asserts obese girls, regardless of their background, are a school grade behind their healthier classmates, performing worse in maths, English and science at GCSE and SATS at 11 and 13. This relationship was not reported as occurring for boys of the same age.

Why is this?

Reasons for this are reported as being unclear, but several suggestions are made. These include links to depressive symptoms encouraging absenteeism, stigmatisation by peers, sensitivity to mental health problems, physical inactivity, chronic inflammation, or a combination thereof. The article would seem to raise more questions than it answers, as none of the mechanisms listed were reported in any detail or evidence cited.

It should be noted that a statistical relationship was found, causal relationships or the direction in which this correlation occurs were not. For example, is it something to do with the obesity that causes the poor grades? This would appear to be the assumption adopted in the article. Or, is someone who gets poor grades more likely to be obese? Or, could there be a separate factor (such as a certain parenting style or other environmental factor, for example) that makes both poor grades and obesity more likely? It is impossible to tell from this and as such, I would not like to speculate.